


Because It's Gravity

by UniverseOnHerShoulders



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fashion & Models, Angst, F/F, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-24
Updated: 2020-07-08
Packaged: 2020-07-09 10:24:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 49
Words: 111,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19886065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UniverseOnHerShoulders/pseuds/UniverseOnHerShoulders
Summary: The last thing Sephy Lautrec ever wanted was to be dragged into the fashion world - that had always been her estranged father’s domain. But when a bright-eyed scout approaches her on Oxford Street on behalf of top designer Clara Oswald, Sephy finds herself drawn in by the strange, aloof, dark-eyed woman, and she starts falling deeper into a shadowy world she has never understood.Surrounded by excess and extravagance, Sephy fights to keep a level head. But something unspoken simmers beneath the surface, and secrets risk being exposed…





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... here it is! My newest project and my first 13/Clara AU. I hope you all like it!

“Hey!” 

Sephy Lautrec looked down at her phone, studiously feigning a look of great disinterest as a stranger’s voice piped up behind her in a shout that was ubiquitous the world over. She knew precisely what the speaker would want; she’d lived in London for long enough to have grown immune to the shouts and jeers of passers-by, and yet today? Today she had little energy to deal with the idiocy of her fellow humans; today she wanted nothing more than to finish running the gauntlet of event promoters, tour operators and Bible-bashing preachers that was Oxford Street, make it into the relative safety of Oxford Circus Underground Station, and head home. Coming to this part of the city was something she strove to avoid wherever possible, and yet on some occasions it proved a necessary evil; particularly at this time of year. 

“Hey!” the voice shouted again. “Hey! You, in the braces and the rainbow scarf!” 

She wanted to groan aloud. She wanted to express any kind of sound of exasperation, but that would involve acknowledging that she had heard the speaker, and so she kept her head bowed and continued walking, one hand shoved deep in her pocket and the other clutching a gaggle of neon-bright Selfridges bags, their vivid yellow reminiscent of the braces that trisected her chest. 

“Hey!”

A hand seized her upper arm and she let out a cry of indignation, yanking away from the unwanted contact, and as she wheeled around to face whoever had grabbed her, her face contorted into a scowl of rage. And yet… the culprit was not what she had anticipated. A young man of no more than twenty was stood behind her clutching a clipboard to his chest, his expression clouded with uncertainty and apology and something else that she couldn’t quite put her finger on. She felt a rush of guilt for being quite so aggressive in her behaviour, so she extracted her free hand from her pocket, brushed her coat down and stood a little straighter, attempting to look contrite. 

“Sorry,” she said brightly, in her best, most people-pleasing voice. “You really shouldn’t just grab people like that, though, especially not in London. You might get hit. You might get coffee thrown over you. You might end up getting shoved into the road, or onto the pavement, and…” she looked down and the grey tarmac beneath them, slick with rain and covered in a layer of grime, pollution and litter. “That isn’t a great prospect, is it? You’d get all grubby, or stood on. Possibly both.” 

“Uh,” he blinked hard, visibly disconcerted by her accent and her upbeat tone. “No, that wouldn’t be… I’ll uh… in future…”

“Use your words,” she said warmly, patting him on the shoulder and tipping him a wink. “Honestly, they’re a real boon. What did you want me for, anyway? Another top tip for you…” she waved her hand at him in a nonverbal question, and he frowned, before realising what she wanted and stammering: 

“Psi.” 

“Top tip for you, Psi: shouting ‘hey, you!’ is not a nice way to get anyone’s attention. I’d recommend ‘excuse me;’ that might get you some more results, moving forward.” 

“Right. Urm. Well, excuse me, but I’m…” he seemed to snap out of his stupor almost instantaneously, adopting a more confident pose and smiling at her in a winning fashion. “I’m here today scouting for Time.” 

She blinked at him with blind incomprehension, absolutely baffled why a journalist would be stood on Oxford Street shouting at passers-by.

“The modelling agency?” he clarified, and Sephy felt her heart sink into her boots. “We’re quite well-”

“I’m not interested,” she muttered darkly, bowing her head and starting to move away. “I’m really, really not interested.” 

“Wait,” Psi said earnestly, reaching for her arm and then seeming to think better of it, his hand hovering awkwardly in mid-air instead. “We’d be really interested in signing someone like you. Everyone at the moment is all eyes and hair and teeth, and we’re looking to diversify our portfolio-” 

Sephy came to a halt, unable to resist the opportunity to toy with him. “Like I… don’t have eyes and hair and teeth?” 

“No, that’s not… I’m not…” 

“Like you’ve not just insulted all of your existing talent?” 

“That’s not… look, they’re beautiful people, yes, but they’re all very identikit. They sent me out here today to try to find someone who doesn’t fit the mould; someone who isn’t a blonde Adonis-”

“Excuse me,” Sephy raised her eyebrows in mock affront. “I am _definitely_ a blonde Adonis, thank you very much.” 

Psi’s cheeks coloured, but he continued: “-or Aphrodite-” 

“I’m definitely one of them, and all.” 

“Because we want to diversify and showcase people who are beautiful, but in their own way.” 

“This all sounds like a very contrived and euphemistic way of saying that I’m ugly, but in an _interesting_ way.” 

“No!” Psi looked appalled at the very suggestion. “No, not at all! You’re stunning – that’s what I’m trying to get at. You’re stunning in a way that is entirely your own, and we’d be very interested in signing you. We’re working with a designer at the moment who is looking for models with a unique look, and you’d be perfect.” 

“Who’s the designer?” 

“I can’t disclose that information without closing the deal, I’m afraid.” 

“By which you mean signing me.”

It’s a loaded sentence, hanging between them almost oppressively, weighted somewhere between a challenge and a question. Psi visibly swallows, disconcerted by the intensity of Sephy’s stare as she faces him down, the two of them stood stock still in the middle of the pavement, with Christmas shoppers flowing around them in a ceaseless tide of capitalism and enforced merriment.

“Yes,” he breathed at last, the word almost lost to the roar of the traffic and the hum of thousands of people, all focused on one thing: spending money. “Yes, I do.” 

“The answer is no.” 

“Why?” 

“Because it is.” 

“But why?” 

“Because I said so.” 

“And why do you say so…” 

“Persephone Lautrec.” 

He raises his eyebrows, then lets out an honest-to-god guffaw. “ _Persephone_? You’ve _got_ to be a model with a weird name like that.” 

Sephy affixed him with a steely glare, and he visibly wilted. “Really? Are you really in a position to be judging anyone based on their name, Mr ‘Twenty-third Letter of the Greek Alphabet’… or would you prefer Mr ‘Unit of Pressure’?” 

Psi visibly deflated. “It’s uh… it’s not my real name.”

“No kidding.”

“Is yours?”

“The first part: unfortunately yes. The second part: no.”

“Are you going to tell me what your real last name is?” 

“Probably not.” 

“Would you if we signed you?” 

Sephy arched an eyebrow at him. “Definitely not. What’s your real name? Bob? Dave? Steve?” 

“Jon Bailey.” 

She snorted. “Yeah, Psi suits you better.” 

“Persephone doesn’t suit you at all.” 

“Thanks. I thought you were trying to close a deal here?” she reminded him. “Because insulting people will get you nowhere.” 

“If you’re phrasing it like that, does it mean I was close to convincing you?” he asked optimistically, his face lighting up. “Because that would be-” 

“No.” 

“Oh,” he looked crestfallen. “Look, just… take my card, yeah? Give me a call if you change your mind.” 

“I won’t.” 

“You’d be surprised how many people say that,” he produced a card from his jacket pocket and handed it to her with a flamboyant little flourish and a smirk. “But then they think about the money and the fame and what it could mean for them, and they change their minds.”

“Yeah,” Sephy said drily, taking the card and slipping it into her coat. “Funnily enough, money and fame never did much for me.” 

“Wh-” 

“Thanks for the card. Merry Christmas, Unit of Pressure.” 

She strode off before he could speak again, swallowing the anger and uncertainty that broiled in her chest as she went.

* * *

As she stepped over the threshold of her stepmother’s property in Chelsea, Sephy realised only belatedly that she was still clutching the Selfridges bags containing her family’s Christmas gifts, and swore under her breath as the door slammed behind her. 

“Jenny?” a familiar voice called from the direction of the lounge. “Or is that my-”

Sephy set the bags down beside the stairs, yanked her coat off and deposited it over the top of them in one fluid movement as her stepmother entered the hallway with a wide smile.

“My Sephy. Of course it’s my Sephy, you were never one for closing doors quietly.” 

“I can close doors quietly,” she said with mock affront, feigning great hurt. “I just know you don’t like being crept up on, River.”

“Yeah, yeah,” River beamed and pulled her into a hug, planting a kiss on each of her cheeks. “How are you, my love?” 

“Good,” Sephy mumbled. “Good, yeah. Busy.” 

“Doing?”

“The usual.” 

“Have you done any more of those fabulous paintings with the 3D effect? I’ve got a couple of friends who would be _very_ interested-” 

“No, they wouldn’t,” Sephy sighed, trying and failing to conceal her impatience at the mere mention of any of River’s so-called ‘friends.’ Sephy would have termed them ‘hangers-on’, but she hadn’t the energy to have that particular argument again. “They just want to collect me.” 

“Collect your work.” 

“Collect my _name_. Which isn’t even _his_ name. So, there’s no point in them even looking at any of my pieces, because I won’t sell to them.”

River raised her eyebrows in distinct bemusement, as she was wont to do when Sephy brought up the somewhat contentious matter, and Sephy rolled her eyes. 

“You kept _your_ name,” she pointed out, feeling her usual rush of anger she felt when the subject was broached. “So why isn’t it alright that I… well, _remodelled_ mine?”

“Darling, we’ve had this discussion. Let’s not have it again,” River said lightly, and Sephy felt a rush of affection for the woman for changing the subject. “Coffee? Tea? I’ve got this divine Black Forest hot chocolate from Harvey Nichols; I’ve been dying to try it with someone, and Jenny hasn’t been around enough to make it worthwhile cracking it open. And there’s mince pies in the kitchen, if you want them – oh, I know you do, I’ll just pop them-” 

Sephy pulled her into another hug, burying her face in River’s hair and taking a shuddering breath. There was always comfort to be found in this house; always a sense of normality; and it was for that reason she had chosen to come straight here in lieu of returning to her empty flat.

“Hey,” River said softly, encircling her stepdaughter with her arms and holding her close. “Hey, what’s all this?” 

“There was… this guy,” Sephy let out a little sigh. “On Oxford Street.” 

“Do I need to dismember him?” 

“No, no, not that sort of guy. He… he wanted to sign me.”

River pulled away, placing her hands on Sephy’s shoulders and blinking in confusion. “Sign you?” 

“Yeah,” Sephy said weakly. “To Time. The modelling agency.” 

River’s eyes widened. “And you said…?” 

“No. Obviously. I don’t want anything to do with that world, or that life; you _know_ that. I’ve always been very clear on that.” 

“But…” 

“But I’m part of it already, by virtue of Dad. Yeah, I know. Thanks very much for _that_ particular legacy, Dad.” 

“Like it or not, Sephy, it’s in your blood.” 

“Maybe I don’t want it in my blood,” Sephy snapped, then felt a surge of guilt as River’s face dropped. “Well… maybe I do, maybe I don’t. No one ever bothered to ask. I never wanted that name or that celebrity or any of that lifestyle. Look at what it did to Dad, River. It destroyed him.” 

“Because he lost himself in it.”

“Because that’s the kind of world it is, and it’s not… it’s not the kind of world I want to be in. All that judgment and excess and bitchiness. It makes me itch just thinking about all the scratchy clothes and uncomfortable shoes and weird things they want you to do to your face and hair.” 

“That world is what you make of it; in the time I had with your father, I saw the good and the bad in it. I think you could do the same, and I think that if you wanted to, you could really get something out of it. You wouldn’t have to lose who you are or what you stand for; you wouldn’t have to become part of that life forever, but wouldn’t it be quite the platform to sell yourself? To sell your work?” 

“I… suppose?” 

“Did you tell this man where to get off?” 

“Not in so many words, no.” 

“In which case, did he give you his details?” 

“Yes, he was distinctly pushy in that regard.” 

“So, drop him an email. The worst that can happen is you have a bit of back-and-forth and you go to a casting, everyone and everything there is terrible, and you leave. Has that been any skin off your back?” 

“No, but if they want me to wear heels, then it might be some skin off my feet.” 

“Don’t be facetious.” 

“Sorry.” 

“Go. Hobnob with rich, beautiful people who exist only to serve as decoration. Sell yourself – not in a prostitute-y way – and sell yourart. Give out your business card. _Network_ , isn’t that what they call it? You never know, you might even end up meeting a nice girl."

“You’re being a bit reductive about models, aren’t you?” Sephy frowned. “I mean, they’re not all _solely_ hot, some of them have brains.”

“And you’re defending them,” River grinned. “So-” 

“Yeah, alright,” Sephy rolled her eyes. “Don’t read too much into that. I’ll send him an email. Now, didn’t you mention mince pies?”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Driven by a craving for nostalgia and a well-ingrained sense of stubbornness, Sephy attends a mysterious casting event.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all the wonderful feedback so far! Here you go... chapter 2!

The last time Sephy had been to a casting, she’d been dressed as a miniature explorer, and models had cooed and fussed over her, smoothing her hair and pretending to be awestruck as she held up her toy binoculars and prowled around the room in search of great beasts and exotic plants. She’d felt the same rush of pride she always had when people were looking at her, and played up to it, making an enormous show of admiring a pigeon that happened to land on the window ledge outside, pretending that she was narrating a wildlife programme.

Her father had been irritated by her behaviour. He’d not wanted her there to start with, but he’d been left with little say in the matter; River was stuck at home with a colicky, teething baby, and she’d protested at the prospect of having to mind a hyperactive pre-teen alongside dealing with the squalling infant Jenny. And thus he’d found himself tasked with the prospect of occupying his older daughter for the afternoon, and dragged her along to his casting out of sheer desperation. She wasn’t entirely sure what she was _supposed_ to do, other than sit quietly in the corner, but her father should have known better than that; should have known that if there was one thing she was pathologically unable to do it was to sit still and be quiet for any longer than ten seconds. 

When he’d shouted at her, it had been a shock. She’d not done anything wrong, in her eyes – she’d been playing, as children so often do, and no one had complained, had they? The beautiful women in the room thought she was marvellous, and yet suddenly her father was shouting at her, telling her to wait outside, and she’d found herself burdened by the crushing, terrible realisation that her father considered her an embarrassing inconvenience. She’d resolved then and there to never have anything to do with the world of fashion ever again, even after he came out and muttered a half-sincere apology to her under extreme, tangible duress from the tallest, prettiest model, and now, as she stood in a room full of beautiful men and women, she felt a nauseating sense of anxiety as she was transported back to that moment in the casting room, so many years ago, as he ranted at her about her behaviour.

She didn’t belong here. There were people in the room so beautiful they took her breath away – people who seemed impossibly poised and elegant in a way that she could never hope to be; people who stood together in small groups, chatting about matters she didn’t care enough to attempt to eavesdrop on. To them, being beautiful was easy. It was part of their very being; part of the way they carried themselves. They were utterly lacking in self-consciousness and uncertainty; utterly convinced that yes, they belonged here; and utterly uninterested in her. There was the odd pitying look thrown in her direction, as though she were some poor relation who didn’t belong at a family gathering, but other than that she was largely ignored, and for that she was grateful.

“Right,” a woman with masses of blonde hair and heels high enough to give Sephy vertigo strode into the room, and a revered hush fell at once. “My name is Yvonne Hartman, and I’m here today to make decisions for my client. The client in question will be remaining anonymous at this stage, for reasons which I do not understand and do not care to try to understand, so there is no point in asking, speculating, gossiping, or going on Instagram to do any digging. Anyone who wants to be a nosy parker will immediately be considered unsuitable for this particular job; if anyone has a problem with this, leave now.”

There was a brief pause as Sephy realised that she was being serious, and a number of models peeled themselves away from their groups and walked out without a backwards glance. She felt a rush of apprehension – this was supposed to be a fun testing of the waters and a fun way to network, per River’s encouragement, not… well, not the Secret Service.

“Good. Now, I’m sure you’re all aware of how these things work, so ladies, heels _on_ please, and line up. Gentlemen, make yourselves presentable in… well, whatever way it is you need to.” 

Sephy looked down at the canvas tote bag at her feet, which contained her only pair of high heels, and felt a hot rush of loathing towards the things. As the women around her slipped on staggeringly high pairs of shoes and elevated themselves above her all the more visibly, her stomach dropped, and she considered heading for the door and following the earlier models out of the casting, before remembering that she had promised River the night before that she would keep an open mind. Instead of fleeing, she therefore allowed her mind to race, attempting to come up with an alternative plan as those around her began to murmur to themselves again, no longer caught up in listening to Yvonne.

As the vague beginnings of a queue began to form, snaking around the perimeter of the room, Sephy cast off her coat, balled it up around both her bag _and_ her shoes, and chucked it into the corner of the room which appeared to have been designated as a makeshift cloakroom. Joining the back of the queue, she could feel the contempt of the other models as they gazed down at her mismatched outfit and boots, but she forced herself to maintain a bright smile, leaning casually on the wall and trying not to let her nerves show. 

“Sorry,” someone asked from behind her, and Sephy turned to find a woman with hair shorter than her own, the sides buzzed short, who was leaning back against the wall in a pair of scarlet heels that seemed entirely at odds with her tomboyish outfit. “Where are your shoes?” 

“I decided that wearing high heels was kowtowing to the oppressive capitalist heteropatriarchy,” Sephy said with a deadpan expression. “And it would de-align my chakras, so I thought ‘bollocks to that’. I’m being subversive and committing a micro- and macro-aggression against an overarching regime that values women only for their looks.” 

The woman snorted. “Nice bullshit. Where are they actually?” 

“I thought ‘bollocks to that,’ just not any of the rest of it.” 

“And you really think you’ll get this job?”

“No, not really. But I thought this’d be a good laugh at least. Or a good chance to meet people.” 

The woman raised her eyebrows neutrally. “You’re… weird.”

“No, I’m Sephy. You?” 

“Angstrom.”

“As in, Angst, and then… Rom as in CD?” 

“Yes,” Angstrom adopted an expression that Sephy recognised; it was the mirror of her own when she sensed someone was mocking her name, or on the verge of doing so. “Why?” 

“That’s a brilliant name,” Sephy beamed. “I’m Persephone, strictly speaking, and that’s _naff_ – daughter of Demeter, married Hades, blah blah – but it’s so _not me_ and it’s so _Greek_ and I’m so… very obviously not-Greek, but yours? Yours is brilliant. Matches you perfectly.”

Angstrom squinted at her, visibly unsure whether she was taking the mick or not. “Really?”

“Yeah, really. Swap?”

The other woman started to laugh. “Nah. I’m keeping the name and the shoes. Yours isn’t a naff name though; Persephone was great.”

“Still not terribly me.”

“I-”

“Where the hell are your shoes?” barked Yvonne, and Sephy realised that as they’d been speaking, she and Angstrom had reached the front of the line. “For the love of… did you not _read_ the email?”

“Oh,” Sephy stepped forward, feeling her heart rise into her throat as she entered the centre of the room “I did.” 

“So, where are they? Let me guess… you left them on the Tube? Left them in an Uber? The dog ate them? The cat pissed on them? Come on, what’ll it be? Surprise me.” 

“They’re right over there,” Sephy pointed to the corner, fighting to keep her hand from shaking. “In my bag.” 

Yvonne clicked her tongue. “So, go and put them on and get to the back of the line. I don’t have time to deal with this. Show some bloody initiative or get out; I’m not going to mother you, and nor is my client.” 

“I don’t want to put them on.” 

“I’m sorry?”

“I said, I don’t want to put them on.” 

“Stop pissing about. Go and put them on. Now.” 

“No.” 

The word rang through the room, and there was a flurry of sound as those around her broke into scandalised whispers. 

“I’m sorry?” Yvonne asked, striding over to Sephy and standing in front of her, hands on her hips and her very being oozing menace. “What did you say?” 

“I said no.” 

“No, _what_?” 

“I’m not going to call you ‘ma’am’, if that’s what you’re after.” 

“I wouldn’t be opposed to it,” Yvonne said icily. “But come on, no _what_?” 

“No, I’m not putting them on. If the men don’t have to wear them, then I don’t want to either.” 

“So… what? You want to walk as one of the boys? Is that it? You want to be one of the lads?” 

“Something like that,” Sephy raised her chin. “That’s not against any rules, is it?” 

“I don’t see why not,” Yvonne’s lip curled. “But as a fair warning, all of those men are prettier than you are, sweetheart, so you haven’t got a hope in hell.” 

“That’s alright,” Sephy shrugged. Two could play at this game. “All of these women are prettier than you are, and you’ve still done alright for yourself.” 

A terrible, stricken silence descended over the room as the two women stared each other down. Yvonne’s expression was unreadable, carefully measured and entirely blank; and Sephy was on the verge of losing her nerve and walking out when out of nowhere, her verbal sparring partner cracked. 

Yvonne burst into laughter – honest, genuine laughter – throwing her head back as she roared with mirth. 

“My god, you’ve got some balls,” she managed through her amusement. “You’re a brave woman. Fine, you walk with the men. You can have this chance. But if my client doesn’t like it, then that’s that.”

* * *

It was only a few steps from the building in which the casting had been held to the nearest Costa Coffee, and for that, if nothing else, Sephy was grateful. The December weather had taken a turn for the worse, plastering her hair against her head, and as she waited for her order to be prepared, she tried to run her fingers through it, pulling it away from her scalp in the hope that it might dry a little as she sat in the warmth.

“That was pretty ballsy,” a male voice cut into her reverie, and she wheeled around to find herself face to face with one of the models she had just walked alongside. His name eluded her entirely. David? Darren? Something decidedly normal. “Standing up to Yvonne Hartman.” 

“It wasn’t, really.”

“That could end your career,” he arched an eyebrow, looking her up and down with tangible disdain. “I mean, do you even have one yet? Because if you want one, you’re not going about it the right way.”

“I don’t, and I’m not sure I _want_ one.”

“So, you don’t want a career in fashion, but you’re happy to come and make a fool of Yvonne Hartman, instead of just… staying at home and minding your own business?”

“Why are you so in awe of her?” Sephy asked, frowning as she spoke. “You keep throwing her name around like she’s some kind of god. She’s not. She’s just a person.” 

“Just a…” he snorted with derision. “You really are new here, aren’t you? She can make or break a career. Not that it’d bother you and your total lack of interest, or anything.” 

“Whoever you think she is, she’s just a person, and she can’t treat people the way she does. She’s not inherently better or worse than anyone else; she shouldn’t be put on a pedestal and she shouldn’t be allowed to treat people like shit.” 

“It’s the fashion industry, darling. That’s what the people in charge are like.”

“What, and you think that… just because that’s normal, that’s what it _should_ be like?” 

“I don’t know,” he shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not. But you can’t come in and fuck up the status quo like that. You can’t challenge her. It would be for the best if you just left well enough alone. You’ve obviously got issues with authority; you’ll _hate_ designers. Designers are like Yvonne but _so much worse_ , because they’ve got ego-” 

“And she doesn’t?” 

“-and they’re accustomed to being hero-worshipped. This particular one in particular.”

“How do you-” Sephy began, wide-eyed as she realised what he was insinuating.

“I was in bed with her last night,” he said with a contemptuous smirk. “Believe me. She _loves_ to be worshipped.”

Sephy could only stare at him with incredulity as he took his coffee and started to head back outside into the deluge.

“Believe me,” he said over his shoulder. “If you don’t like being on your knees, in every sense… get the hell out of this. Now.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reviewing the fruits of her highly-secretive casting call, Clara Oswald is drawn to a photograph of a young woman with blonde hair. Intrigued, she feels herself being drawn in by the stranger...

“No, no, no, no, no, still no, very much no…” Clara Oswald walked the length of Yvonne’s desk, one hand skimming along the line of glossy 6x4 photographs that adorned the surface, each depicting someone who Yvonne had deemed worthy of shortlisting, and the other clutching an enormous cup of takeaway coffee. She was dressed, as was her habit these days, solely in black and white, with a pair of sunglasses that were entirely surplus to requirements wedged atop her head. For each ‘no’ that she uttered, she pushed the offending photograph several inches back from the edge of the desk, indicating clearly that she didn’t think they made the grade. 

Even from here, she could tell Yvonne, safely ensconced on a sofa in the corner of the room, was holding her breath. It was absurd, really; Yvonne had almost two decades on her in both age and experience, and yet she was as in thrall to Clara as it was possible to be. Clara could’ve picked that apart, if she really wanted; could’ve looked at it and wondered why, exactly, she seemed to strike terror and awe into the hearts of those around her, but she neither cared nor dared to. she was half-afraid of what she’d find out about herself if she indulged herself with the luxury of self-reflection; and half-caught up in the rush of heady adrenaline that came from being equal parts feared and adored. 

“Do _any_ of them make the grade?” Yvonne asked, her voice high and impatient. _Ah._ She’d been growing bolder of late, and Clara wasn’t sure if this was something to be encouraged or nipped in the bud. It gave her another sparring partner, but the challenge to her authority was entirely unwelcome. “Because I’m not holding _yet_ _another_ casting for this.” 

Clara wheeled around to face her, arching one eyebrow in a silent challenge. “I’m sorry?”

“That’s four now,” Yvonne said, but her irritated expression slipped from her face and her complexion turned ashy in the face of Clara’s icy disbelief. “And none of them are suitable.”

“I haven’t said that none of these are suitable,” Clara said with wide-eyed innocence, as though there was, in fact, a genuine hope of finding someone perfect in the midst of the rubbish that Yvonne kept bringing her. “I haven’t seen the last few women yet, or any of the blokes. I might find someone utterly divine.” 

“Don’t do that,” Yvonne snapped. “Really. Don’t.”

“Don’t do what?” 

“Don’t try to fuck with me by getting my hopes up,” Yvonne said bluntly, before clamping her mouth shut and swallowing thickly, suddenly realising that swearing may have been too much. “I mean… I…”

Clara raised her other eyebrow, startled by the gall of Yvonne. Most people didn’t try to challenge her, but most people had not spent the past month attempting to find someone – _anyone_ – suitable to walk in her latest show. Hundreds of models had found themselves rejected, and Clara was sure that Yvonne was reaching the end of her patience. 

“Let me look,” Clara said after a moment, her tone more gentle than it had been a moment earlier. It was not, after all, Yvonne’s fault that London’s extensive range of models were all cut from the same cloth. Clara was not interested in the conventional or the conformative. She didn’t want men and women of six foot tall towering over her, and she didn’t want the usual cookie-cutter model features that were so commonplace amongst agency signings: eyes that sparkled and cheekbones that could cut glass; noses more perfect than anything a plastic surgeon could aspire to create, and lips that would have made Cupid envious. She wanted… something else. She was not sure _what_ , exactly, but something other than the norm; something she would absolutely know when she saw it. 

As she reached the end of the line of women, nudging each photo back in a silent rejection, she sipped at her coffee languidly and circled the desk, approaching the line of photographs of male models and starting the process again. As she walked slowly along the line, she allowed only one model to make the cut, and then reached the end and affixed Yvonne with a bemused look. 

“Why is… this person here?” she asked, snatching up the final, woefully amateurish headshot and waving it at Yvonne like a flag. “I know models are getting more gender-fluid and more androgynous now, but…”

“She, uh…” 

“ _She_?” Clara said thoughtfully, looking down at the photograph again. “So, if she’s a she, why is she on this side of the table?” 

“She insisted on walking with the men.” 

“She… what?” 

“She refused to wear heels, and insisted instead that she be allowed to walk with the male models. She was… bloody cheeky, actually-” 

“In what sense?” Clara frowned down at the woman’s face, examining it critically. The woman had hazel eyes and a warm smile, and Clara couldn’t help the immediate thought that sprang to mind: this woman was beautiful. Despite the industry in which she worked, true beauty – beauty that came from within was rare, but this woman’s face shone with something Clara couldn’t identify. It was a kind face; an open face. A face that actually showed expression, unlike any of the women whose photographs had been rejected on the opposite side of the desk. 

“I told her that the men there were prettier than she was, so she hadn’t much hope. She told me that the women there were prettier than I was, but I’d done alright for myself.”

Clara snorted, almost spilling her coffee in the process. To dare to speak to Yvonne Hartman like that took bravery, and she smiled down at the photograph, wanting nothing more than to congratulate the stranger. “I like her already.” 

“You… do?”

“Aww, still bitter because the nasty lady was mean to you?”

“No,” Yvonne said coolly. “I’m just concerned that you might clash with her, given that you can give as good as you get, and apparently so can she.” 

“So, you don’t think I can handle it?” 

“I didn’t say that, Clara. Don’t put words into my mouth.” 

“What’s her name?” 

“Persephone Lautrec.”

Clara paused; her interest piqued. “Like the painter?”

“What?”

“Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. He was a Post-Impressionist painter.” 

“Oh,” Yvonne frowned, her expression betraying that she had no idea who Clara was referring to. Clara made a mental note to send her an expensive book on Post-Impressionism at some point in the future as a particularly passive-aggressive gift. “I suppose so.” 

“Persephone,” Clara took a swig of her coffee, rolling both the name and the liquid around in her mouth before swallowing both. “That’s… unusual.” 

“I very much doubt it’s her real name,” Yvonne rolled her eyes. “You know what these model types are like.” 

“Except… she’s not a model type. She’s not even a model; look at her. Look at this headshot. There’s no way that she does this professionally. So who the hell is she?” 

“I… don’t know. A journalist, maybe?” 

“She stands out too much to be a journalist,” Clara said dismissively, shaking her head. “No journalist would dress that ostentatiously, or refuse to walk with the other women at a casting. This is someone who both wants to be noticed and yet doesn’t want to be noticed; a contradiction in and of herself.” 

“She was certainly dressed very… unusually.” 

“Yes, the rainbow shirt,” Clara smiled to herself, reaching down and placing a fingertip against the stripes that cut horizontally across the woman’s chest in the photograph. “Very… striking, in an avant-garde sort of way.” 

“I didn’t think you usually went for the sort of women who wear t-shirts,” Yvonne said in a teasing voice, and Clara’s head snapped up at once, surveying the other woman with an icy glare. 

“Meaning?” 

“Urm,” Yvonne seemed to realise she may have crossed a line. “Professionally speaking.”

“Good. For a moment I was concerned that you might be making snide comments about my personal life.” 

“Oh, if I was doing that, I’d make note of the fact that you’ve only selected three models from the casting; one of whom you’re shagging,” Yvonne said coolly, but Clara could see that her hands were shaking at her sides. “But I won’t.”

Clara narrowed her eyes. “I think I liked you better when you were too scared of me to say things like that.” 

“I think I liked you better when you didn’t make your fuck buddy audition for your own show.” 

“It’s like you _want_ me to fire you.”

“Maybe I do,” Yvonne said icily. “Do you want this Persephone or not?” 

“Yes,” Clara said with absolute certainty. “Yes, I do.”

* * *

“Come back to bed,” Danny called from her room on the other side of the flat. “Clara! For fuck sake, it’s nearly three in the morning, where are you?” 

“One… minute…” Clara mumbled to herself, knowing Danny would never hear her but hardly caring. She’d been struck with a sudden thought half an hour ago as they lay in bed together, and now she was sat in the kitchen, scrolling through an immaculately-designed website on her MacBook and trying to find out all she could about the curious model who had shown Yvonne Hartman such contempt.

 **_Persephone Lautrec Art_ **

_Portfolio_

_About_

_In Print_

_Commissioning_

_Contact_

Clara had scrolled through each page with meticulous and concerted interest, starting with the portfolio. She wanted – _needed_ – to get a feel for Persephone’s work, and as she clicked her way through the gallery of large, crisp photographs of her pieces, she had to admit that the woman had talent. There were large, brightly-coloured paintings that depicted strange, alien-like landscapes adorned with curious flora and fauna; even larger canvases daubed with waterfalls of paint in unusual patterns; dark, introspective pieces in greyscale that seemed to hint at a tortured inner narrative; portraits picked out in oil paint, the detail of each stroke of the brush visible through the high-resolution photographs; and then murals, several storeys high and painted in glorious technicolour, bearing messages about climate change and equality.

Clara couldn’t help but snort at such idealistic notions. She had nothing against the _ideas_ , per se, but to be so overtly political was naively optimistic at best, and dangerously foolish at worst. She was impressed by the choices of colour and level of attention to detail put into each piece – she was, after all, an artist in her own way, and her own field – but she couldn’t help but feel a rush of pity for this curious woman, toiling away to preach messages that the masses would be prone to ignore.

Browsing the section _In Print_ threw up article after article about Persephone’s works, her exhibitions – small, few and far between, but apparently much-feted – and her artistic style, but there was very little to tell her _who_ this woman was. Thus it was that with trembling fingers, Clara clicked on _About._

_Persephone Lautrec was born in Yorkshire and studied at University College London and the Royal College of Art, where she specialised in Fine Art and Illustration. Inspired by the world around her, her works centre on both an ideal future and the juxtaposed narrative of what is, scientifically speaking, likely to come; a contrasting worldview that is a particular fascination of the artist._

_Persephone has been featured in_ The Times _,_ The Evening Standard _, and_ The Daily Telegraph; _she was named Young Artist of the Year by the Tate in 2007._

And that was it. There was nothing more; no stories of her childhood, no details beyond the superficial. Clicking back into the _In Print_ section, Clara scrolled with gritted teeth, searching for any kind of article that might betray a nugget of personal information, any interviews, anything that bore a hint of anything beyond the purely professional, yet she found nothing. It was as though Persephone didn’t exist in three dimensions; as though she existed only in her capacity as an artist, and nothing more. She must have gone to school somewhere; must have likes and dislikes and favourite foods and friends. So why was there no evidence of any of those things anywhere? It was oddly impersonal and clinical; a starkly black-and-white contrast to the glorious technicolour of her work.

Persephone was an artist, yes. Clara understood that much. She had suffered enough isolation – some self-imposed; some not – for her own craft, and she understood the necessity of finding and enforcing your own solitude from time to time, as well as the upholding of one’s image. To the world, Clara was cold and composed; she was a designer, yes, and therefore public property, but she was detached from it all enough to maintain a degree of equal parts allure and intrigue. 

Persephone did not seem to have a social circle; she moved alone, and she gave nothing away. She was a ghost, treading lightly on the face of the earth, and one thing was certain. She was a brick wall; a dead end; she was mysterious to the point of suspicion, and if it was intended to garner interest, it worked. 

Clara was absolutely and utterly intrigued by her.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As Sephy struggles with a significant date, she receives a surprising phone call in the aftermath of her disastrous casting call.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to everyone for all the positive feedback so far!

As she stood in her usual position in front of the grey, weathered headstone, Sephy felt the same swooping sense of loss that struck her on this day every year. The cemetery was otherwise deserted; most of the population of the tiny town had made the sensible decision to retire inside, well away from the lashing rain and uncomfortable chill in the air. In the summer, this was almost a beautiful place, but in winter, it was bleak and ethereal; the sort of cemetery that you might find in a Bronte novel, haunted by the ghosts of wronged women past. But for her, on this grey December day, there was only one woman that she was interested in, and she squinted down at the headstone with a lurch of sadness.

Sephy supposed that the bleak winter weather was somewhat fitting. She dimly remembered a long-ago English lesson and the use of the words ‘pathetic fallacy,’ and now the phrase seemed more apt than ever. As she stood in the downpour, her umbrella providing little protection from the driving, near-horizontal rain, she tried to reconcile how she was feeling with the weather around her.

Overwhelmed. Overcast. Unhappy. Rainy. Uncertain. Cloudy. 

“Do you…” Jenny’s voice piped up from beside her, gentle and quiet, and she started as she was drawn away from her own thoughts. “Do you want me to hold your umbrella so you can sort out the flowers?” 

Sephy looked down at her half-sister, who was stood at her side with one arm looped reassuringly through hers. Every year since she had turned thirteen, Jenny insisted on making this pilgrimage with Sephy; this journey to honour someone she had never known, and for that, Sephy was perpetually grateful. Her sister’s company, regardless of the weather or the place or the time, made everything seem a little sunnier; made everything a little more bearable, even this most macabre of pilgrimages. Each year, Jenny was uncomplaining as the British weather threw everything it could at the two women who trekked to the north of England, soaking them both with rain or snow, and then seeking out the gaps in their clothing with a piercing, icy wind that seemed determined to drive them back inside. 

“That would…” Sephy swallowed thickly, overwhelmed by a rush of affection for her sister. “That would be great, thank you.” 

She passed the enormous golf umbrella over to Jenny, and then turned her attention to the bouquet of flowers tucked under her other arm. It was the same as she ordered from the local florist every year; the same arrangement of the same roses and lilies in the same bright orange and pink shades, and she crouched down, unwrapping them from their cellophane with the utmost care as Jenny shadowed her movements with the umbrella, keeping the worst of the rain from her face. 

“Just one year,” her sister said conversationally as Sephy pushed back the overgrown grass from the foot of the headstone, seeking out the small vase nestled in the marble with numb fingertips. “Just _one_ year, do you think it might stop raining for us?” 

“Chance’d be a fine thing,” Sephy muttered, locating the vase and dropping the flowers into it, giving them a perfunctory shuffle with shaking hands and then straightening up. “How long do you reckon they’ll last?” 

“In this weather?” Jenny grimaced. “Depends. The rain’ll keep them watered; I suppose. But then there’s the wind… the cold might work in your favour, though. Keep them preserved.” 

Sephy nodded, hardly listening as she read and re-read the text etched in the marble. 

_Elizabeth Smith (née Primus)_

_Beloved daughter, wife, and mother._

_1960 – 1989_

Jenny rested her head against Sephy’s shoulder, taking her hand and giving it a gentle squeeze. 

“She seemed like a really great person, your mum,” she said quietly, knowing the comfort Sephy drew from her words. “I wish I’d known her.” 

“Yeah,” Sephy managed, putting an arm around her sister. “Yeah, she was.” 

They lapsed into a comfortable silence, the two of them standing in each other’s embrace and looking down at the grey headstone now adorned with the bright blooms that Sephy’s mother had always so loved. 

Sephy fought to swallow the usual wave of sadness and anger she felt at the wording on the headstone. Her father had insisted upon it, and she hadn’t been taken seriously enough, as a mere child, to argue with his decision. She remembered her abject confusion upon seeing it for the first time; remembered looking up at her father with a frown and asking why exactly it made it sound like he was still married to Mummy.

There had been a flicker of something over his face, then; a flicker of something she wouldn’t understand until many years later. She hadn’t been able to comprehend the complexity of adult relationships then – how could she have done? at seven her most serious relationships were played out with her cuddly toys – and it wasn’t until much later that she’d understood how much her father had still loved her mother; how much he’d regretted acquiescing to her desire for a divorce, and how much he’d regretted that he had not been there on that fateful day, when she had seized the car keys and announced she was going for a drive. Sephy still remembered the look on her grandparents’ faces as they answered the door to a haze of blue lights; still remembered her father’s expression when he arrived in Yorkshire and swept her into his arms. She still recalled with perfect clarity the uncomfortably itchy dress she’d been forced into for the funeral, and dropping a handful of soil-turned-mud onto her mother’s casket as it was lowered into the ground. 

After that, there had been hushed arguments conducted in near-whispers, the kitchen door muffling the words so that all she could make out was a drawn out _hissssss_ , as though someone had left the gas on. There had been lawyers and social workers and counsellors, all of whom she studiously refused to engage with, keeping her mouth shut and her hands clenched into fists at her sides. There had been blank, blind incomprehension, as her father made the fateful announcement. And then she was bundled off to London without so much as a by-your-leave, dragged away from all she knew and loved and put into a messy, child-unfriendly flat with a primarily absent father, and left to occupy herself. She hadn’t been entirely sure what the point of it all was; why drag her away from her friends and family and school only to refuse to spend time with her? Why subject her to that upheaval only to render her isolated and feeling wholly unwanted?

It wasn’t until she reached adulthood that she understood it; understood that her father desperately wanted and needed her to be close to him, and to keep her safe. That he both craved and loathed how she reminded him so intrinsically of her mother; reminded him of the woman he had loved and lost twice, with the second time being far more permanent than the first. Having her with him in London ensured her safety, yes, but it brought him indescribable sadness, and he had thrown himself into his work in a bid to escape it, and a bid to provide her with a better life. Instead, all she had known was her own company and an endless string of unsuitable nannies, until eventually River had crashed into her father’s life in the early years of the 1990s, and for the first time in a long time, Sephy began to feel part of a family again. 

“Do you want to head back to the B&B?” Jenny asked, jolting her out of her reverie, and she blinked hard, realising her cheeks were wet with tears. “Get something to eat?” 

“That, uh…” Sephy nodded, trying to surreptitiously wipe her eyes. “That would be nice, yeah.”

“Here,” Jenny slipped a packet of tissues into her hand, and Sephy extracted one with a grateful smile, dabbing at her cheeks and blowing her nose. “She’d be really proud of you, you know?” 

“Yeah, standing her all snotty and crying in the rain.” 

“I meant more generally.” 

“Travelling the world and pretending to do art?” 

“Doing art. Making a change. Making a difference. You could’ve just… I don’t know, let everything overcome you and turned into an absolute dick, but you didn’t. You could be a really awful, miserable, angry person, and I wouldn’t blame you if you were. But you refused to let that happen.” 

“I…”

“You could’ve been so awful to Mum, and you could’ve really hated me. Hell, _I’d_ have hated me; babies are annoying as hell. But you didn’t. You were kind, and you were protective, and you never made Mum feel like she was a shitty human being for trying to parent you.” 

“Largely unsuccessfully.”

“Yes, well,” Jenny grinned, giving her hand a quick squeeze. “Not her fault that you and she are two of the most singularly stubborn people on the planet.” 

“I think all four of us were.”

“Yeah, well,” Jenny shrugged, attempting to look nonchalant, but Sephy could see the hurt that flashed across her face at the merest inference to their father. “He wasn’t always around enough to really be stubborn, so he doesn’t count.” 

“Shall we head back, or do you want to stay here and get even wetter?” Sephy asked, eager to change the subject. There was little point in remembering those latter years; the years after her father’s brand became the darling of the fashion world, and he seemed to forget that they even existed. A second parental loss, no easier than the first, and still as raw as an open wound. 

“Yeah,” Jenny said with a brightness that Sephy knew disguised a hurt as deep as her own. “Let’s. Do you want to call Mum when we get back?” 

“That’d be good, yeah.” 

“And for dinner…” 

“Fish and chips.”

That settled, they trudged back to their accommodation in companionable silence, grateful to head back into relative shelter of the narrow streets of the town, Sephy kept her head bowed, watching her feet traversing the pavement and trying not to dissolve into tears for what felt like the hundredth time that day. It had been almost thirty years, and yet this annual ritual never grew any easier; it was never any less unsettling to be back in the place that had been her home for the earliest part of her life, shaping who she was and the way she spoke irrevocably. There were still families here who knew her; who remembered her mother and father as a happy couple, blissfully in love, and who would stop and talk to her each time she paid a visit. They would cup her cheeks with their palms and tell her how much she looked like her mother, and she would smile and nod, unwilling to let them see how much their words reminded her of those first few years in London with her absentee father, and instead trying to look buoyed by their remarks.

The silence of the late morning was broken, inexplicably, by the loud peal of her phone. She frowned to herself, wondering whether it was perhaps River to offer quiet condolences and words of support, and extracted her phone from her pocket, squinting at it in the rain. 

_Unknown Number_.

She answered, a sense of trepidation rising in her chest as she swiped the screen with her thumb. 

“Hello?”

“Hello, is that Persephone Lautrec?” 

“Yes, why?” 

“It’s Yvonne Hartman,” Sephy felt her stomach drop in response to the words. “We met at the casting.” 

Sephy stopped walking, her hands starting to shake. 

“This really isn’t a good-” 

“My client wants you.” 

“They… this isn’t… I’m really…” 

“They want to meet you and the other models chosen. I’ll email over the details.” 

“I’m… that’s… I’m in Yorkshire.” 

“That’s nice. I’ll email you through everything. I look forward to seeing you again.” 

With a _click_ , she rang off, and Sephy was left blinking at her phone in shock. 

“What?” Jenny asked, trying to look over her shoulder at the screen, as though that may explain why her sister had frozen. “Who was it?” 

“Someone…” Sephy blinked hard. “Someone from the casting. They want to meet with me again.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Invited to a mysterious meeting by an anonymous designer, Sephy is surprised by who she finds herself face to face with.

Sephy looked up at the imposing building in front of her, trying to quell a rising sense of anxiety about what exactly she was getting herself in for. Buildings like these were not for her. Buildings like these were for the very rich and the very glamorous, and she was neither. The front of the place was a gleaming construction of glass and steel, and there was an official-looking doorman stood by the entrance, garbed in a long overcoat and glaring at her with enough malice to have intimidated a lesser woman. She wasn’t sure what the usual clientele of this building were like, but she strongly suspected that they didn’t favour brightly-coloured prints in clashing colours. It stood to reason that they were models, so she supposed they dressed in whatever was avant-garde for the season; black and white seemed to be rather quintessentially timeless, judging by the few others who were entering or exiting the building, and so she stood out all the further in her rainbow scarf and matching gloves. 

Was this for her? She’d been asking herself the same question since the call had come in, and she still wasn’t sure how to feel about matters. There was something inherently jarring about the thought of inserting herself into the world that had so dangerously absorbed her father, and yet there was something oddly thrilling about it all. Perhaps it was born of her own fledgling vanity; perhaps it was born of her sheer human selfishness; but either way there was something about being picked that appealed to her ego. Her inner competitiveness had been sparked at the casting, and now she was practically buzzing with adrenaline, ready to play the game. She knew what the prize would be, and she wasn’t entirely sure whether she wanted it, but there was something about the thrill of the chase that appealed to her.

“Are you here for this meeting thing with Yvonne as well?” a glum voice asked beside her, and she turned to take in the sight of a tall young man with dark skin, who was stood with his hands thrust deep into the pockets of a bomber jacket, and was staring up at the building with an expression that tangibly conveyed the uncertainty she was feeling.

“Um,” she blinked hard as she processed both his words and his accent, before breaking into a grin. “Yeah. You’re northern.” 

‘Yeah,” he beamed at her then, evidently relieved to find someone with whom he had something in common. “So are you.” 

“From the accent, I’m guessing… Sheffield-way?” 

“Yeah, ish. Me nan’s from just outside. What about you?” 

“Skelmanthorpe,” she wrinkled her nose. “How long you been down here?” 

“About…” he checked his watch. “Three hours. You?”

She made a great display of doing the same, then frowning dramatically. “About… 28 years.”

He laughed then, as she’d intended, before letting out a low whistle. “Still northern?”

“Still very much northern, thank you. None of this London rubbish. I’m not going southern, not for hell or high water.” 

He laughed again, then extracted one hand from his pocket and offered it to her. “Ryan.” 

She took it and gave it a comically-exaggerated shake. “Sephy.” 

To his credit, he didn’t laugh, or tell her it was a weird name. He simply nodded sagely, then gestured to the building in front of them.

“Shall we?” he said, and somehow the prospect of going inside seemed far less intimidating with someone by her side. 

“Certainly,” she said with as much enthusiasm as she could muster, and together they approached the doorman. 

“I’m terribly sorry, this building is-” he began, but Ryan adopted an apologetic smile. 

“Yeah, you see the thing is, mate, we’ve got an appointment with Yvonne Hartman. So, you might wanna let us through.”

The doorman looked them over with an expression which more than adequately conveyed precisely what he thought of that idea. “Do you now?” he asked stonily. “So, if I check that…” 

“She’ll confirm it,” Sephy stood a little straighter, irritated by his presumptuous nature. “But I don’t imagine she’ll be very pleased to know that you’re stopping people she’s arranged meetings with; she might find it a bit prejudicial and rude that you aren’t willing to let them into the building. And I imagine that Yvonne Hartman is not the sort of woman who would take well to such behaviour.” 

The doorman’s face turned ashen, and he pulled the door open for them with a series of stammered apologies. Sephy and Ryan crossed the threshold into a gloriously warm lobby, and approached the reception desk with bright smiles. 

“Uh,” Ryan began tentatively, blinking down at the headset-wearing receptionist, who didn’t bother to look up from her screen. “We’re here to see-” 

“Thirteenth floor.”

“But…” 

“Yvonne Hartman. Thirteenth floor,” she gestured to some lifts to their right, then added in a flat, robotic tone: “Have a pleasant day.”

“Right. Cheers,” Ryan swallowed, casting Sephy a nervous look as they headed towards the lifts. “Is it just me or are people in London like… rude?” 

“People in London are rude,” Sephy confirmed, feeling her stomach turn over as the doors _binged_ and slid open smoothly. “Who do you reckon this designer is, anyway?” 

“No idea,” Ryan shrugged, pressing the button for the thirteenth floor. “Gotta be one of the big ones, right? I mean, one of the big British ones. International houses aren’t usually interested in black guys from Sheffield with dyspraxia.” 

Sephy looked at him in surprise as the doors closed. “You’re dyspraxic? How does that work on the catwalk?” 

“I concentrate. Really hard. People think I’ve got this sick, like, moody model face going on; I actually don’t, I’m just trying really hard not to fall on my arse. I walked for McQueen last year and there were these ridiculous shoes with enormous heels, and they weighed a ton. I genuinely thought I was gonna end up in the lap of someone in the front row. How it didn’t happen, I’ll never know.” 

“I’m sure they wouldn’t have minded. Would’ve added a nice interactive dimension to the show; critics eat that kind of thing up.” 

“I mean,” Ryan chuckled. “You might have a point there.” 

The lift shuddered to a halt and Sephy dusted her coat down absentmindedly, trying to quell the nerves that were rising in her chest as the lift ascended floor by floor. 

“Look, you’re obviously new to this-” 

Sephy shot him a look, arching one eyebrow delicately. 

“You look like a deer in the bloody headlights, so don’t try telling me you ain’t. It’s scary, but it’ll be fine.” 

The doors slid open, revealing Yvonne Hartman, who was stood in the corridor in such an archetypal power stance that Sephy had to bite down on her lip to keep herself from laughing. 

“You’re…” she seemed to want to say _you’re late_ , but upon checking her watch she found them to be five minutes ahead of schedule, a fact which seemingly displeased her as she finished sourly: “…here.” 

“Hi,” Ryan said warmly, holding out his hand. Yvonne looked at it with distaste, and made a great show of taking her phone out of her pocket and checking it to avoid having to make physical contact with him. Raising his eyebrows skywards a fraction, Ryan withdrew his hand, and shoved it back into his pocket with an air of irritation. 

“Hi,” Sephy said, and this warranted a small nod of acknowledgement by way of response. “So, who are we-”

“Have some patience,” Yvonne rolled her eyes at them both with theatrical, carefully-crafted boredom. “Really. You’re about to find out, and my client was extremely determined that the surprise not be spoiled.” 

“Why all the secrecy though?” Sephy frowned, not understanding the need for such cloak-and-dagger behaviour. “I mean, why not just tell us upfront?” 

“Because telling people upfront attracts the wrong sort of people,” Yvonne said with contempt, as though this ought to be obvious. “And we can’t have that.” 

“Well, that can’t matter too much, can it?” Sephy shot back, feeling anger stirring in her stomach at the elitist insinuation behind Yvonne’s words. “Because you obviously seem to think we’re the ‘wrong sort of people’, and yet we’ve ended up with an appointment with whoever your client might be. So I’m very much not sorry that I’m not taller, or thinner, or prettier, but that can’t matter much, because I’m here, aren’t I? So someone – I’m guessing your client – thinks we _are_ the right sort of people, so you can put your misogyny and your racism back in their shitty, opinionated boxes, and actually treat us with some respect. Starting by shaking my friend’s hand.” 

“I don’t shake hands with anyone,” Yvonne said coolly. “It’s a germ thing. Nor am I racist, or misogynistic.” 

“You’re doing a great job of acting like it,” Sephy said in a shaking voice, her fury broiling away in her chest.. She was dimly aware of Ryan’s expression becoming increasingly horrified beside her as she continued: “A really stellar job, in fact.” 

“I don’t know what you’re-” 

“We aren’t what you expect, as models. I’m, oh, I don’t know… too short and too weird and probably too fat; he’s too dark-skinned and too northern, I’m guessing; at least in your eyes. But guess what? We’re here. We’ve made the cut, despite those characteristics, so I’d suggest you maybe expand your definitions of what it means to be a model.” 

“Who manages you?” 

Sephy blinked hard, disconcerted by the sudden change of subject. “I… what?” 

“Who manages you? Who are you signed to?” 

“Urm. Time. Why?” Sephy felt a sudden flash of fear, and then a corresponding flash of relief. Perhaps Yvonne was going to complain about her, and get her fired. That would bring all of this to a crashing, convenient end. 

“No you’re not. _I’m_ signing you,” Yvonne, against all odds, grinned. “Yes, I’m working for a third party in this instance, but I’ve got some talent on my books, and you’re… well, you’re something else. You’re gobby and you make me laugh. You aren’t scared to stick up for things. I’m signing you.” 

“Urm,” Sephy blinked hard, wrong-footed by the offer and unsure whether that had been Yvonne’s intent. “Right. OK. Urm. Can we maybe talk about that… after?”

“Of course,” Yvonne’s smile didn’t waver. “Most people wouldn’t have the balls to say any of the things you’ve said to me, or do what you did at the casting. We need more models like you; more people who aren’t afraid to actually challenge things and tell people that the norms are bullshit.”

“Right,” Sephy’s head was spinning. “Yes. Absolutely. The norms certainly are… daft.”

“Absolute _bullshit_. Alas, such is the way of the industry; they want their six-foot stick insects and their white models. It’s absolute, implicit bias if you ask me; they’re missing out on showcasing a wonderful variety of diverse talent, but they want what they want and they don’t like to be challenged. Think me on a much, much higher level, and with so much more ego. A colleague tried challenging Stefano Gabbana once. They’re now an ex-colleague. They work in a Burger King in Milton Keynes.” 

“Right,” Sephy said again, attempting to nod sagely, and wondering whether Yvonne was joking. “In that case, you won’t have any issue with signing my friend Ryan as well then.”

Ryan let out a yelp of shock, and Yvonne affixed him with a cool stare. “How long have you known this woman?” she asked him, arching one eyebrow in a silent challenge. “Approximately?”

“About… five minutes.” 

“Would you call her a friend?” 

Sephy felt Ryan’s gaze on her, and she knew that he was sizing her up; trying to get the measure of her and what she was like as a person. 

“Yeah. I would.” 

“Well, then,” Yvonne smiled at him; a quick flash of teeth that was almost too fast to catch. “Congratulations, thanks to her balls, you’re one of mine now. Try to keep any celebrating in check until after this meeting. Is that understood?” 

“Yes,” he said sagely. “Yes, absolutely, but bloody… thank you, Ms Hartman, this is… this is a _lot_ , but… wow…” 

She merely raised her eyebrows at him. “Ready to meet my client?” 

“Yes,” Ryan said, at the same time that Sephy said: “no.”

“Good enough for me,” Yvonne shrugged, turning sharply on her heel and marching down the corridor. Ryan and Sephy exchanged a look and began to trot after her. “Now, don’t be nervous,” she called over her shoulder. “They’re sold on you already. You wouldn’t be here otherwise.” 

“Right,” Sephy said, attempting to sound more confident than she felt. “Good. That’s… good.” 

Yvonne knocked on a door, and then, without a second’s hesitation, opened it and ushered them into an office. There was a desk in the centre of the floor; a great glass and chrome construction with an iMac placed exactly in the centre and an enormous leather desk chair on one side, arranged so that the occupant was facing towards the floor-to-ceiling windows that took up one wall. There was a view over the city from here, the Thames snaking its way lazily through the middle of it all, and Sephy had to admit that it was impressive; the kind of view she would have loved, if she had an office like this. Bookshelves lined the walls, artfully decorated with glossy coffee-table books with single-word titles, vases of flowers, and bowls of glass pebbles; all which were, like the entire space, hued in monochromatic shades.

The male model who had delivered Sephy such a cryptic warning following the casting was stood leaning against the window, his body language tense and his face a mask of fury as he looked down at the figure who was sat at the desk. Sephy had the distinct feeling that they had interrupted something private, yet he hastily adopted a look of neutrality and nodded curtly at the three of them. 

“Ah,” the figure in the desk said, turning in their chair and getting to their feet. “You must be Ryan and Persephone.” 

Sephy looked across the office at Clara Oswald, and felt the air leave the room.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sephy isn't sure entirely what she was expecting from Clara Oswald, but it isn't... this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, they’ve finally met... what now...?

Clara Oswald was, in a word, stunning. 

Sephy had seen her before, on television and in magazines, and yet neither of those mediums could possibly do her justice. Her chestnut hair cascaded down to her shoulders in loose, ruffled waves, and her dark eyes were kohl-rimmed. She was dressed in a simple white shirt with black trousers – Sephy wanted to call them jeans, but there was probably a more technical term that she absolutely refused to entertain – and had a grey scarf draped lightly around her neck, but what drew Sephy’s attention most pressingly was the expression on Clara’s face. 

It was a carefully-constructed mask of neutrality; her eyes steeled against something imperceptible and her mouth set in a thin line. It was intended to give nothing away, and yet it did, because it was so acutely at odds with Clara’s body language that Sephy wanted to take a step forwards; wanted to put her hands on this stranger’s shoulders and ask whether she was OK; wanted to sweep her into a hug. 

Clara’s posture was hunched, as though she were folding inwards on herself, and while her arms were folded in front of her torso, Sephy could see her hands shaking where they were tucked under her arms, and her chest was rising and falling rapidly, almost too shallowly to be perceptible, but enough to indicate that something was wrong. Her eyes darted nervously back towards the man stood in the window, then over to the new arrivals, and that was all it took for Sephy to have the measure of the situation. She’d sensed they’d walked in on an argument; this confirmed it, and even as she had this thought, the man in the window muttered an apology and stormed out of the room without a backward glance.

“Sorry,” Clara said in a faltering voice. “Sorry, don’t mind him.”

“Is everything…” Yvonne began, before exchanging what appeared to be a complicated system of head tilts, half-nods and eyebrow raises with Clara that apparently meant something to them both, because shortly after, Yvonne nodded more decisively. “I’ll go after him in a minute.”

“Thank you,” Clara said wearily, before affixing Ryan and Sephy with watery smiles. “Please, take a seat.” She gestured to a low bank of black leather sofas arranged into a loose square in a corner of the office. “Tea? Coffee?” 

“Uh,” Ryan looked to Sephy as the three of them sat. Despite their appearance, the sofas were more comfortable than first anticipated, and Sephy leant back, enjoying the sensation of sinking into the cushions. “I’ll have what she’s having.” 

“Well, in that case, I’ll have a cuppa. A proper one, mind. Milk. Three sugars.” 

“Uh, only the one sugar in mine, ta,” Ryan interjected, and Yvonne nodded before stepping out of the room and closing the door softly behind her. “Nice place you’ve got here.” 

“Thank you,” Clara seemed to brighten at the compliment, her arms uncrossing as she gestured expansively to the room around them. “I put it together myself. It was the view that really sold it.” 

Sephy leaned back in her seat, surveying Clara as she and Ryan chatted about interior design. The intricacies of it all escaped her, but she was content enough to let the sounds of their voices wash over her. 

It was not only the designer’s looks that had robbed her of the ability to breathe. She knew who Clara was, in more ways than one; she was the genius behind her eponymous brand, yes, but she was so much more than that. 

Almost a decade prior, Sephy’s father had come home from a graduate fashion show, waxing lyrical about the work of one student in particular. Her name had been Clara Oswald, and she’d caught his eye in a way that Sephy had never seen before, and she, River and Jenny had been forced to listen passively as he rambled on about Clara’s work and her potential and the innovative way that she worked with fabrics to construct a narrative for hours on end. It was nothing they hadn’t heard before, but they were unaccustomed to him being quite so passionate, driven, or obsessive about such matters, especially another person’s work; he raved about Clara for almost a week before he thought to make contact with her via her university, and so it was that she was taken under his wing as a protégée at his label. 

He’d been almost bloodily single-minded about Clara. On her first day, he’d made it clear he was elevating her above the other interns; worked with her – and her alone – to design a collection he subsequently dedicated to her; and spent countless hours locked in his office with her, discussing… well, Sephy had never known. He’d become jealous and private about what they did together, refusing to talk about it to his family and making paranoid jibes about leaks and industrial espionage that were as hurtful as they were unfounded; they were his family, after all, and they would never have dreamed of anything that might jeopardise his success – they were far too wary to have dared to do so.

Still, her father had kept Clara away from it all – from them, from other employees at his company, from her own family and friends, and suspicions began to grow amongst fellow employees; whispers began to circulate, and Sephy was young, but she was no fool. She was old enough to know the way of the world; she’d seen photographs of Clara, snuck from her father’s briefcase in the dead of night. She began to wonder whether the long ‘meetings’ he held with her – meetings that could last for hours at a time, and from which all others were prohibited from interrupting – were all that they seemed, and so she’d confronted him about it. Unable to get a straight answer from him, she’d walked out of the house without looking back, and thus had come the first fracture in a relationship that had long been fraught with hairline cracks; the first rupture in a family unit that had once, thanks to River’s influence, seemed shaky, but entirely unsinkable. 

Now, seeing Clara face to face, there was no doubt about it; Sephy could see the allure of her. Passion for the work she did and the world she inhabited permeated every word she spoke, enthusiasm shining from her very being as she talked to Ryan with rapturous excitement about the design of the room, and how it was inspired by the latest trends coming out of Paris. 

As she watched Ryan nod mutely in awe, Sephy became aware that Clara was exerting a strangely magnetic pull on them both; one that seemed to be entirely subconscious – she seemed, superficially at least, to have no idea of the effect that she was having on them. Ryan was staring at her in rapturous wonder, his eyes wide as he listened to her speak, and Sephy could still feel a vaguely hypnotic tug in her mind as she gazed at Clara’s perfectly put-together face, watching her lips move and feeling a low, corresponding tug in the depths of her stomach. She understood then; with a sudden, crashing sense of clarity, she understood what had happened, and almost wanted to laugh aloud. 

Clara was one of those rare people in life who drew others in. Whether consciously or not, she intrigued people; she made them want to get to know her, want to win her approval, want to make her smile. She made people want to be better versions of themselves, and she made people fall over themselves to do so. 

Sephy had met only two other examples of such magnetism. 

One was River. 

The other was her father. 

It was only then that Sephy realised how exactly things had come to pass; how exactly her father and Clara had entranced each other in the same way they had entranced so many others – foolishly, and unwittingly. They’d become obsessed with each other, yes, but there was no doubt in Sephy’s mind that it had been nothing more than chaste; her father was too enraptured with River to consider straying from the marital bed, and Clara seemed wholly unaware of what she was doing; wholly unaware in a way that conveyed with absolute clarity that the last thing on her mind was sex. 

Sephy felt a sudden surge of guilt, white-hot and insidious. All those accusations… all those years thinking that her father was some kind of bastard… she loathed herself for it in that instant; felt a swooping sense of regret that she’d wasted time being angry with him over something entirely baseless. 

Still, she supposed. It could have been worse. Clara didn’t seem to recognise her; why would she have done, when her father had been so careful to keep his work life and his private life so separate?

“Persephone?” Clara said suddenly, and Sephy realised that she had been staring, unmoving, at Clara for several minutes, her eyes unseeing as she lost herself to her thoughts. “Are you alright?” 

“I…” Sephy swallowed thickly, forcing herself to smile in the face of Clara’s unwavering charm. “Yes. Fine. Sorry, I was miles away.”

“It’s quite early still, isn’t it?” Clara said sympathetically, turning the full mega-wattage of her attention onto Sephy. “Well, for me, anyway. And this weather isn’t helping me feel any more awake. Tea should be on its way, though I can’t guarantee the quality of it.” 

“I think the real question is… are you alright?” Sephy watched the colour leave Clara’s cheeks as she spoke. “Who was that guy?”

“W-what guy?” Clara asked unconvincingly, leaning back against the sofa cushions and starting to worry her bottom lip with her teeth. The façade that she had been so carefully cultivating from the moment the strange man had left the room began to slip. 

“The one who was in here when we arrived. He didn’t look too happy, and nor did you. And now you’re shaking, and you’re overcompensating by talking too much. I do the same, so don’t try to pretend that you’re fine. I know you’re not.”

“You are aware that I’m trying to hire you?” Clara shot back, in what was undoubtedly intended to be an icy tone, but her voice was wobbling too much to adequately convey the intended coldness. “These questions…” 

“He tried to warn me off working for you,” Sephy explained with a shrug, locking eyes with Clara and refusing to look away. She could feel Clara’s gaze burning into her, and her heart skipped several beats as she fought to catch her breath, disconcerted by the intensity of the other woman’s stare. “Before I even knew it was you. After the casting, he bumped into me as I was getting coffee, and he warned me to stay away.” 

“He…” Clara’s eyes went wide, and she broke eye contact, looking over at the door with an aghast expression. “Danny did that?” 

“Yeah,” Sephy frowned, trying to look innocent and unknowing. “Why would he do say something like that?” 

“I…” Clara took a shuddering breath, then lied: “I don’t know…” 

“Oh, I think you do,” Sephy raised her eyebrows. “It looked like you did, just now.” 

“Look, he…” Clara took another deep breath, as though steeling herself, before carrying on in a stronger voice: “He doesn’t like the direction that this collection is going in. He thinks I’m being too bloody difficult and too picky with models; he thinks the pieces aren’t up to scratch; he thinks I’m losing my creative identity, or something of that vaguely bullshitty vein. None of that matters. None of what he thinks matters. Not to me, and not to you.” 

“It _does_ seem to matter you,” Sephy said quietly, noting the tears that welled up in Clara’s eyes. “Because you’re shaking.”

“Who the hell do you think you are?” Clara snapped, her hands balling into fists at her side, but her eyes remained wide and wet. “You’re just a model; you’re not anything special. You’re just someone I want to hire, and do you know what? I don’t think I want to now. I’m not having models prying into my business and asking questions, acting like fucking… like fucking _journalists_. That’s absolutely out of the question. Get out. Both of you. Get out.” 

“But…” Ryan began, gaping up at Clara in confusion. He seemed visibly horrified to have been drawn into this dispute. “But I…” 

“Now!” Clara snarled, getting to her feet and moving over to her desk. “Go on!” 

Ryan started to stand, but Sephy shook her head almost imperceptibly at him as Clara leant against her desk, her breathing starting to accelerate as she bowed her head, letting her arms take her weight as she closed her eyes. Her breathing began to accelerate, the sound of her inhalations and exhalations audibly growing closer and closer together, and Sephy knew she had to intervene. 

“Hey,” she said quietly, crossing the room to Clara and placing a gentle hand on the small of her back. Clara flinched as though she’d been shot, her eyes snapping open, and Sephy took her hand away at once, holding it up with her palm out and her fingers splayed in a universal gesture of surrender. “It’s OK. Sorry. I won’t touch you. It’s alright. You’re having a panic attack, aren’t you?” 

“I…” Clara managed, placing one hand on her chest and squeezing her eyes shut again. “I… can’t…” 

“I’m sorry,” Sephy said again, her tone low and reassuring. “I shouldn’t have been so blunt. You’re going to be alright. I want you to tell me five things you can see.”

Clara opened her eyes, looking over at her like she was mad. 

“Five things you can see,” Sephy said again, more firmly this time, and Clara seemed to throw caution to the wind. 

“You,” she mumbled, taking shuddering breaths before continuing in a rush: “R-Ryan. Desk. V-view. C-chair.” 

“Good,” Sephy smiled at her warmly. “Four things you can hear.” 

“My h-heart,” Clara closed her eyes, swallowing hard, but her breathing slowed a fraction. “Helicopter. Ph-phone ringing. You.” 

Sephy nodded encouragingly. “Three things you can touch.” 

“Desk,” Clara’s hands shifted on the glass top, seeking cold parts of the clear material. “Urm. Urm. Urm. Carpet. You? Just… just now.” 

“Good,” Sephy chanced resting her hand against Clara’s back again, and felt some of the tension leave the designer’s body. “Two things you can smell.” 

“Perfume,” Clara’s breathing was beginning to slow, and her voice starting to steady. “Your perfume. _Daisy_ by Marc Jacobs. And Ryan’s… Ryan’s aftershave.” 

“One thing you can taste.” 

“Gum.” 

“Good. Do you feel any better?”

Clara blinked hard, her breathing almost back to normal now. “Yes,” she said quietly, turning so that she was perched on the edge of desk, rather than leaning over it. “Yes, actually.” 

“Do you still want us to leave?” 

There was a long pause. 

“No,” Clara said after a moment. “No, I don’t.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clara finds herself increasingly intrigued by Sephy, and allows her mind to wander...

Clara had been unsure what to expect of Persephone Lautrec, but whatever it was that she’d anticipated, it was not… well, not _that_. She’d spent hours poring over the woman’s photograph prior to their meeting, trying to pinpoint precisely what it was about her that seemed familiar, and in person she had found the nagging feeling of recognition all the more frustrating, her brain only half-listening to what Sephy had to say as it struggled to flick through its catalogue of faces encountered, working to make a connection between the reluctant model and someone – _anyone_ – she had ever met. There was a warm feeling of recognition there, which signalled to her that her intuition was correct, and yet she couldn’t put her finger on it. There was no single discernible clue that signalled strongly to her who Sephy might so elusively remind her of, and so instead she had given up on the task, hoping that might shock her brain into making the connection by catching it unaware.

More than anything, Sephy had seemed… genuine. Warm. Kind. Empathic, in a way that was uncommon in this industry. Clara could recall the last panic attack she’d had, a week prior; could still remember the way she’d hunched over, bent almost double, in the filthy toilet of a bar in Shoreditch as she’d shuddered and tried to catch her breath. There’d been no sympathy then; no concern and no compassion. Her companions had rolled their eyes as they leant against the open door of the stall, muttering accusations about drugs that she wanted to rebuke and yet couldn’t find the breath with which to do so. There had been a sense of irritation that emanated from them; a sense that she was being perceived as desperate or attention-seeking. A sense that she should simply get over it, and move on; a sense that she was ruining everyone else’s night. 

There had been none of that with Sephy. Sephy had been there for a business meeting, nothing more, and yet she had seemed neither frustrated nor annoyed when faced with Clara’s hyperventilating. She hadn’t seemed to begrudge spending several long, agonising minutes calming her down; quite the contrary. Moreover, she’d kept a wary eye on Clara for the rest of their meeting, watching as she lifted her cup to her mouth with trembling hands, and occasionally offering her a warm, reassuring smile. She’d seemed, if Clara didn’t know better, like she cared. 

It was a foolish thought; for all her musings that Sephy felt familiar, Clara was sure that she was reading too much into things. After all, the woman was a stranger to her; she was someone who wanted – or did not want; she remained unclear – a job, and that was all. There could be nothing more there than a general sense of playing the Good Samaritan, surely, and yet still… still there was an almost tangible undercurrent of genuine worry that had seemed to undercut Sephy’s words and gestures, as though Clara were an old friend for whom she was truly concerned. Clara couldn’t shake the feeling that all that Sephy had done had been from a place of empathy, rather than a desire to speed up the meeting, or avoid embarrassment. Genuineness and authenticity had radiated from her as she sat across from Clara, in the same way that it was broadcast from her artwork, and Clara couldn’t help but admire someone who was so unabashedly, unapologetically themselves; someone who cared about each person in the same manner, regardless of their social standing.

There could be no doubt about it – Sephy would be part of the show for her upcoming collection. Hiring an unknown could prove to be career suicide, but Danny – her mind skipped uncomfortably over his name, like a needle on a record – had been a relatively obscure model before she had plucked him from some contrived show for a mail-order company, and he had elevated the brand to new heights. He had a kind, compassionate face that he could rearrange into an expression of surly boredom on a whim, thus able to court two kinds of customer, although now she was far more accustomed to being on the receiving end of the look of angry disinterest than she was his gentle, easy smile. Things had soured between them as she felt her inspiration ebb away from her with perceptible, incremental inevitability, and they had been arguing for weeks as he ceaselessly criticised her colour palette, her designs, and her fabric choices. 

She had never intended that he come to take up so much space in her life. In the beginning, he had merely been handsome, and she had wanted him, and so she’d invited him for drinks one night after work, and it had all seemed perfectly simple after that – as those there were nothing easier in the world than telling him, in quiet and impolite terms, what she wanted him to do to her, and then taking him home, taking his clothes off, and taking him to bed. She’d started making excuses for him to visit her in the office; last minute fittings, opinions on hair and makeup; questions about shoes and accessories, and then, invariably, at the end of the day, there was the bottle of vodka in her desk and the smooth, inviting leather sofas, and they would turn off the lights and fuck as the city spun its intricate web of light and sound below them. 

Danny had never quite left after that; she’d claimed him for her own as her muse. It was crucial, she told her staff, that he visit her in the office each day, or came with her to the various external ateliers and studios she frequented. It was essential that he accompanied her to brunch or to dinner or to drinks; it was vital that he attend meetings with her; it was imperative that he have an opinion. It was necessary that he wore her newest pieces before anyone else – after all, weren’t they made in his honour, as though he were some kind of god? – and it was inevitable that at the end of most evenings they would end up on her floor as they made themselves anew. 

If anyone didn’t like it, or if anyone complained, then that was easily remedied; they would find themselves looking for a new job before the week was up. She regretted that now; regretted surrounding herself with sycophants and yes-men who told her only what she wanted to hear. The only person who refused to do so was Danny, and she loved and loathed him for it in equal measure – while she was open to the truth, the manner in which he so often chose to humiliate her now was by doubting her in front of her staff, and the impertinence was galling. She’d never been foolish enough to consider that he might love her, but she’d hoped he cared enough about her to control his mouth; she was now facing the almost-daily evidence that he did not.

It seemed as though he took a maudlin, bitter pleasure in it; in denouncing her work and criticising her choices with such brazen openness. It was as though being oppositional was some kind of power-trip to him; not that it mattered, when it reduced her to tears on more occasions than she cared to admit, and drove her to drink to oblivion on countless more. It was the only way to ensure it didn’t hurt; the only way she could tolerate him enough to let him near her at night. He seemed to have moved in – or perhaps just installed himself, on a remarkably interminable-seeming basis – and so now she often found herself working late, a glass of something strong at her side as she sought to make her work and domestic life, if not pleasurable, tolerable at the very least. 

So it had been, she thought, until her meeting with Sephy. He’d been stewing about it ever since she suggested it, and she could see why; as she had elevated him from anonymous nothingness, so she could drop him again in favour of another. That was his fear – he hadn’t needed to voice it aloud, but nonetheless, Clara could read him like a book. The arguments had been constant, and were growing consistently more unpleasant as he sought to get a response from her, culminating in his furious sweep from her office once Sephy and Ryan arrived. He’d not returned since, and she cast a wary glance at the door as she extracted the bottle of vodka from the bottom drawer of her desk, poured a generous slug into the half-full contents of her water bottle, and downed the lot. 

As she felt the alcohol pulse through her veins, she found her hands wandering to the top drawer of her desk, retrieving a set of coloured pencils and a pad of thick, expensive paper for the first time in weeks. Flicking it open, she allowed her instinct to take over, her hands dancing over the paper until it bore a reasonably recognisable sketch of Sephy. This was not, however, a faithful representation of the woman who had sat before her earlier that day; Clara’s version wore the crimson t-shirt, but looser, an expanse of alabaster shoulder exposed as the neckline gaped, and the garment ended mid-thigh, exposing enough leg to be suggestive. The whole thing was hued in warm hues, bright and contrasting against the stark monochrome of the sketches that preceded it, and as she paused, taking in the half-finished product, she allowed her mind to wander. 

_“Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec.”_

_The voice of her mentor was imbued with a deep, rich enthusiasm for the art that surrounded them. She was content enough to let him talk; still wary of appearing foolish in front of him, it seemed far easier to permit him to speak at length about something that interested him, interjecting semi-regularly with questions to keep him from focusing too intently on her._

_“Master of Post-Impressionism, lover of the Paris theatrical scene, producer of some of the most highly enticing and – dare I say? – provocative works of the late nineteenth century. And, he was tinier than you – he stood at four foot eight inches tall. Or should that be short?”_

_Clara tried to ignore the gentle jibe about her height. She was still uncertain of John Smith as of yet; his presence at her university’s graduate show two months prior had been unanticipated, as had the phone call that followed. She’d thought it to be some elaborate ruse at first – the fact that a renowned fashion designer had actually wanted her to complete an internship with him, based on the scant evidence of a few pieces of her work, was almost laughably unbelievable. And yet here she was, wandering around the National Gallery with him on a Monday afternoon, because he had been determined to show her what ‘real art’ meant; what it meant to, in his words ‘put what you think and feel and believe into a piece’. She was still unsure whether this was intended to be a jibe at her or not; she hadn’t got the measure of him enough yet to know when he was teasing and when he was entirely sincere, in the same way that she could not tell whether he meant the comment about her height as criticism or in a fond manner._

_“Of course, if you want to see Toulouse-Lautrec’s work in any depth, you’d have to visit the Musée d’Orsay; their collection is far more extensive than the National’s. We could go during Paris Fashion Week, if you liked.”_

_“I…” Clara blinked at him, disconcerted by the casual manner in which he made the offer. Paris Fashion Week. He wanted – absolutely genuinely intended, it seemed – to take her to Paris with him, to one of the most prestigious fashion weeks in the world, no less; her, a nobody with a name that meant nothing, still fresh out of university. It baffled her – what did he see in her? What was it that this man – this man who had it all; his own fashion house, his own success, his own renown – possibly see in her?_

_She was not naïve; young, yes, but not naïve. She knew she was desirable; she had shouted it from the rooftops with abject self-assuredness in her hometown during her youth, revelling in the fact that she was considered, even in sleepy Blackpool, to be a great beauty. And yet he didn’t seem that sort of man – he had a wife, she gathered, and two daughters, although he refused to be drawn on the matter of his family. His personal life did not belong to the media; he had proclaimed it to journalists for many years, and so it seemed rude for her to pry. But he seemed content and secure in his private life; he did not seem the sort of man to desire her, and she felt rush of relief at the thought, accompanied by a brief stab of irrational resentment. She could have understood that. This? This jovial afternoon out, and his kindness, and his interest? This she could not understand._

_“Paris Fashion Week?” she repeated weakly, unsure whether she had understood correctly._

_“Yes,” his enthusiastic smile flickered, then doubled in intensity. “You’ll be accompanying me, of course.”_

_The ease with which he said the words made her cheeks flush._

_“Of course,” she echoed. “Well, the Musée d’Orsay would be… lovely.”_


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As Sephy reports back on her meeting with Clara to her stepmother, old tensions swim to the surface.

“So,” River said casually, reaching across Sephy for a roll of gilt-foiled wrapping paper, before unrolling it and placing a shoebox in the centre of it, aligning it neatly. “How did it go yesterday?" 

Sephy had been wrapping presents with her stepmother for almost two hours, and the subject of her meeting with Clara had thus far been entirely absent from their conversation, which had instead centred around Christmas, New Year, and the gifts they were wrapping. Some kind of sixth sense signalled to her that River might not be pleased that the designer in question was Clara, and so she had refrained from mentioning the topic for as long as possible. Now, as River looked over at her expectantly, she felt her cheeks burn, and she dropped her gaze to the book she was wrapping, affixing a piece of sticky tape to it carefully and trying to avoid making eye contact as she folded the paper over and reached for the tape dispenser again. 

“It was… fine,” she said lamely, sticking down the flap she had just created and admiring her handiwork. “Just… you know. Boring fashion talk.” 

“Why are you being evasive?” 

“I’m not being evasive.”

“Then look at me while you’re talking to me. I know you, and I know normally I can’t shut you up, so this is all kinds of weird.”

“I…” Sephy looked up at her with the utmost reluctance, locking eyes with River and offering her a weak smile. “Happy?” 

“Not really, no. You look guilty as sin,” River put down her scissors, and there was a soft rustling noise as the paper she had been about to cut curled up on itself around the shoebox. “What aren’t you telling me? I mean, besides _everything_?” 

“Nothing!” Sephy insisted, hating herself for how whiny and teenaged her tone sounded. “Nothing, honestly.”

“So, why won’t you tell me anything substantial?” 

“Because…” Sephy sighed, running her hand through her hair. “Because I know what that world meant to you, and I don’t want to be insensitive and go on about things that are going to upset you unnecessarily.” 

“Well, I’m asking you about this, because you’re my daughter-” 

Sephy felt the usual rush of affection for her stepmother at her casual, easy use of the word. She’d loathed it, at one point; loathed the off-the-cuff way in which River referred to her as such, and how it made her feel as though her own mother hadn’t mattered. But as she grew, she came to cherish it; came to adore the way that this woman, who could have loathed her with every fibre of her being for representing someone that had commanded John’s affections so utterly, had taken her into her heart and welcomed her into a new family. 

“-and I give a shit about your life, so I think I’m steeled to handle whatever you might say. Who was the designer? Did they like you? What’s the collection like?”

“It’s… very monochromatic,” Sephy began, deciding to answer the questions in the reverse order to which they had been asked. “Lots of black and white; lots of silver; lots of… very much not-me clothes. They’re beautiful – I mean, the cuts and the styles are incredible; loads of leather and loose chiffon and pretty things like that, but they’re just all very… shades of grey.” 

“Are there fifty of them?”

Sephy rolled her eyes. “Hilarious. No, but there’s… a lot. I don’t think they’ll all make it to the final show, so we’ll see what makes the cut and what doesn’t. You remember what Dad was like; he’d draw fifty designs, make thirty, and decide that actually all of them except ten didn’t sit right or fit right or look right.”

“When is the final show?” 

“February. London Fashion Week.” 

“Ah. Naturally.” 

“You could ah… come along. If you liked. If that wouldn’t be too weird,” Sephy looked down at the half-wrapped present in front of her, feeling immediately foolish for even suggesting the idea. River would hate it; she would be absolutely loathe to spend time with the people who had once constituted her entire social circle, before shunning her absolutely. Would it be too bizarre and too painful for her to attend an event with so many of the people who had eschewed her when the divorce was finalised? So many of the people who had ignored her, even at the funeral two years later, as she had wrapped her arms around both her daughters’ waists and stoically refused to cry for the man who had broken her heart? “It’s fine if n-” 

“I’d like that,” River said quietly, offering her a warm smile that reassured Sephy a fraction. “And am I to take it that you inviting me means that they liked you?” 

“They did, yeah,” Sephy took a deep breath. “ _She_ did.” 

“She?” River arched an eyebrow, shooting her a mischievous grin. “Is she pretty?” 

“I suppose,” Sephy felt her cheeks tinge pink at the question. “ _She’s_ ah… it’s… it’s Clara Oswald.” 

River did not respond. Sephy was unsure what she had been expecting her stepmother to do; to drop what she was holding? To gasp? To shriek? Instead there was only stillness, creeping and progressive; a settling of absolute calmness and tranquillity, River’s entire being falling absolutely motionless as she looked at Sephy and gave a small, contrived smile that didn’t extend to her eyes. 

“Oh.” 

“Is…” Sephy swallowed thickly, her heartrate beginning to accelerate. “Is that a problem?” 

“It’s your life,” River said coolly. Her tone was icy but polite; the kind of tone that frightened Sephy, for she knew it concealed an anger that flowed beneath the surface, white-hot and furious. “And you can do as you please.” 

“But Clara-” 

“The girl seems to be doing well for herself. Good for her. And now she wants to hire you. Marvellous.” 

“She’s a wom-” 

“Girl. She’s a girl. A mere child.” 

“She’s only four years younger than me; you don’t call me a child!” 

“You didn’t… you weren’t…” River seemed to experience an intense sense of inner turmoil, before saying cryptically: “Well, I suppose it wasn’t her fault. None of it was her fault.” 

“You know,” Sephy said irritably, her temper fraying in response to River’s covert display of hostility. “It’s incredibly bloody irritating when you do this; when you make allusions to what happened with you and Dad but you won’t give me any details. Irrespective of my relationship with him at the time, he was still my dad when he left you, and you know what? I made the decision to take your side, because from what little I managed to glean of what happened, you were the one who was wronged. You were the one who had to put up with his shit for years, and you loved him, and he totally messed you about. But in return for that, what have I ever got? Vague comments and passive aggression, with bitchy little comments thrown in for good measure. I don’t want all the ins and outs of it; that’s entirely your business. but I want you to stop making vague references like that and then refusing to say any more.”

“You know what happened between your father and I,” River snapped, her anger flaring in response to Sephy’s tone. “He was a prick who chose work and his brand over me – over us. Yes,” she held up a finger, pre-empting Sephy’s complaint. “We were an ‘us’, because even if you weren’t on good terms, he was still your father. You were still part of this family. So much so that I seem to recall you refusing to speak to him ever again after he left me.” 

“He hurt you!” Sephy shot back. “He hurt you in the worst possible way; he broke your heart, and he broke Jenny’s too.” 

“Jenny managed to salvage a relationship with him,” River reminded her in a tone that seemed both snide and sanctimonious. “Jenny managed to make it work.” 

“What, so I’m a bad person because I didn’t?” Sephy clenched her fists. “I’m a bad person because I stood by my principles?” 

“He was still your father! You should have tried, you should have-” 

“And you think I don’t regret it, every single time that I think about him?” Sephy felt her eyes burn with tears, her anger dissipating as guilt flooded her system. “You think it doesn’t hurt me to think of all the time that I wasted by being angry? You think I don’t feel bloody guilty when I think about him dying, convinced that I hated him? I was stupid and full of shitty, selfish pride. I thought I knew best; I thought that my course of action was the right one to take, and I know now that I was wrong. But I was so angry at him; he’d wronged you, after knowing how it felt to be wronged by Mum. He’d chosen the company over us; he’d chosen _that_ _world_ over us. And that hurt me; it hurt that he couldn’t see me. He could see Jenny – he could always see Jenny, and I don’t resent her for that – but he could never see me. He never cared about me; not in the same way.”

“You know that isn’t true.” 

“Do I?” Sephy shrugged, feeling her lip wobble treacherously. “It never felt like it.” 

“Sephy…” 

“I loved him, for all his faults, and I regret not being there at the end, but how could I have been? None of us knew what was coming.” 

“I know.” 

“I…” Sephy wanted nothing more than for the subject to change. “Sorry for getting pissed off.” 

It was an old argument; one that they had had before, but not for many years. Sephy was exhausted by the merest allusion of it; and yet still it seemed to come back to this every time; her being the one who had to apologise, and then River doing the same. The regret and resentment that underlay their words was a constant; it oozed through Sephy with insidious darkness as she lay in the darkness each night, her thoughts straying to her father in those few moments as she was caught between sleep and consciousness. 

Anger and stubbornness made for a dangerous cocktail, and she regretted her arguments with her father with an intensity that took her breath away. The first row had seemed important at the time – fuelled by frustration over his increasingly long hours spent at work and his lack of concern for his family, they’d exchanged heated words and she’d stormed out of the house. The second, following his announcement that he was leaving River, had been uglier – there had been shouting and swearing and a broken mug, and then she had stormed from the dingy apartment he had temporarily called home and never looked back. 

River had been a constant through both; River and Jenny had been the ones she had continued to spend time, listening to her as she complained bitterly about her father and his perceived lack of care. They were not the ones with whom her quarrel lay, and so to cut them out had seemed entirely irrational. And yet still, it seemed, River needed to be reminded that she felt regret and remorse for how things ended with her father as much as the next person; still, it seemed, River needed to remember that her lack of communication with her father did not mean she had not loved him. Even in the deepest, darkest hours of her anger, she had loved him; he was her father, after all, and she couldn’t help but feel a stab of pride each time she saw him on the cover of a newspaper or magazine. 

“Sorry too,” River mumbled, appearing genuinely contrite. “I just… I just worry about you working with her.” 

“It wasn’t her fault,” Sephy noted, echoing River’s words of moments earlier as she looked back down at the gift sat beside her legs, starting to fold over the final flap. “Like you said, she didn’t ask him to give up every waking hour to spend it at the office.” 

River dithered for a moment. “No,” she said after a second’s pause. “Exactly.”

“Besides,” Sephy looked up at her and grinned. “She’s really pretty.”

River smiled wanly as she responded. “She always was.” 

“And she seems… nice.” 

“Sephy, does she know?” 

“Know what?” 

“You know,” River shot her a significant look. “Does she know who you are?” 

“I…” Sephy blinked hard. “Not that I know of. She couldn’t; there’s nothing that links me to him.”

“Sure?” 

“River, I’ve spent almost a decade building a life that doesn’t have his name anywhere in it. She _can’t_ know.” 

“Are you going to tell her?” 

“No.”

River looked, for one awful moment, as though she might be about to ask why not, but instead she held out her hand to Sephy. “OK. Pass the scissors, please.”

Wordlessly, Sephy handed them over, and River looked down at the present she was wrapping. 

“Just… be careful, OK?” her stepmother cautioned after a moment’s silence. “Please.”

“I will be,” Sephy promised. “Always am.”


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On opposite sides of the city, Clara and Sephy have wildly contrasting Christmas Eves.

“Clara, come _on_ ,” Danny said with increasingly agitated exasperation, standing in the doorway of her workshop with his hands thrust deep into the pockets of his jacket. The building had lapsed into anticipatory silence around them, the jewel-bright windows of the surrounding office blocks falling dark in turn until at last, only Clara’s workshop remained illuminated, casting a warm glow of yellow light out into the inky blackness of the December night.

 _Clara Oswald PLC_ was spread across the sprawling thirteenth floor of an otherwise unremarkable but upmarket office block. Clara supposed, in moments of idleness, that she really ought to relocate somewhere more suitably trendy or niche – she’d heard that disused warehouses were terribly chic now – but the offices had been her first battle, and her first victory, and she felt oddly attached to them in spite of herself. She’d started with one meagre, boxy room on this floor, shoved into an office so small that it had made the broom cupboard across the corridor appear spacious, but still she’d managed to design and publicise and plan, taking her work home with her in the evenings and sitting at her sewing machine until her eyelids began to droop with exhaustion. Her neighbours in the building had been overtly condescending in their attitudes towards her, but as her success had grown, she’d taken great satisfaction in buying them each out of their respective offices one by one, until the entire floor belonged to her and she’d displaced more doubters than she cared to count.

Recently remodelled and still smelling lingeringly of paint, her studio was one of her favourite spaces in the extensive suite of offices, workrooms, lounge areas, and studios. Previously the domain of a particularly dodgy accountancy firm, the entire interior had been stripped out; all traces of the rather ugly green colour scheme had been eradicated, and the frumpy office furniture discreetly disposed of. There was now expensive wooden flooring, with carefully-neutral marbled wallpaper on the walls, and a workbench running the entire length of the room; chairs placed artfully alongside it, all facing out into the darkness of the night. Unfinished designs and discarded fabric samples were arranged neatly along one half of the desk; the other half was occupied with regimentally-ordered sketchpads, pencils and pens, all of which were lined up with military precision and at careful right angles. 

Clara was perched in front of a large iPad between the two halves, chewing on a stylus thoughtfully as she flicked through options onscreen with a frown.

“One minute,” she muttered, selecting the colour palette and skimming through a selection of rich crimsons, the dissatisfaction on her face becoming all the more evident as she did so. “I just need to…”

“Clara, it’s almost bloody eight. I’m tired. I’m hungry. I’m fucked off, and I want to take my gi-”

Danny stumbled to a halt on that most dangerous of words, his face contorting with effort as he bit down on his lip. Freezing with her stylus held halfway to the iPad’s screen, Clara turned and blinked at him, before reminding him, as coolly as she was able: “I’m not your girlfriend.” 

“I know,” he said through gritted teeth, his look of terror giving way to one of immense irritation in the face of her _froideur_. “I just… don’t you think…”

“Don’t I think what? You know what we are. You’ve always known what we are.”

“I suppose I was just thinking…” he crossed the room to her, resting his hands on her shoulders, and she fought the urge to flinch. Instead, she looked back down at her screen, finally selecting the perfect hue and shading in a fraction of the garment sketched there. “Given that it’s Christmas Eve, and all…”

“Given that it’s Christmas Eve, what?”

“We could… I don’t know, maybe actually do something that normal couples do.”

“We aren’t a couple,” she said mechanically, hating that she even still needed to say the words. “We aren’t together; you aren’t my boyfriend.”

“I seem to spend a lot of time at your house for someone who isn’t your boyfriend,” he noted, his tone hardening with each passing rebuttal she tossed his way. “I seem to spend a lot of time inside you for someone who isn’t your boyfriend.” 

“Don’t mistake sex for intimacy,” Clara snapped with irritation, setting her stylus down and locking the tablet, rubbing her temples as she did so. Her designs required her full attention, and Danny seemed unwilling to allow her that luxury. “You’ve been inside me; that doesn’t mean anything.”

“Really? You really expect me to believe that it means nothing to you when I-”

“Danny, for the thousandth bloody time: it means nothing to me.”

“So, what? I’m expected to hang around like a bloody puppy dog, waiting for you to want to shag me?” 

“I didn’t say that,” Clara sighed wearily. They’d been here before; they’d had this argument before; and she was suddenly acutely aware of what Danny had been striving to remind her of minutes before: it was Christmas Eve, and this was not the time for fighting or bitterness. But it was also not the time to lie to him to spare his feelings, or to play the game he had been so eagerly hoping she would one day want to play. “I just… you know we can’t be together.” 

“Why not?” he asked aggressively. “You like me, I like you.” 

“Because I’m-”

“Because you’re a _designer_ ,” he snarled, bitterness contorting his features. “And I’m just a _model_. I don’t matter; I don’t have the ego and prestige you do. I don’t have the fame and the money and the hangers-on. Funny, none of that seemed to matter to you last night, when I was making you come so hard that you nearly passed out.” 

“It has fuck all to do with that!” Clara got to her feet, clenching her fists at her sides as she scowled up at him. “I just… I work with you! I can’t be seen to be dating my own employees; what kind of image does that give me? How does that make me look? Unprofessional, that’s how it makes me look.” 

“It’s funny,” Danny gave a soft little laugh, his tone abruptly softening, and somehow that scared Clara more than the shouting. “You didn’t seem to give a shit about that last month in Malia, when you were so high that you could barely remember your own name. You didn’t seem to give a shit about that last week, when you stumbled out of Libertine and got into a row with the press. You didn’t seem to give a shit about last night, even, when you were all bloody over me before we’d even got inside, even though anyone could have _seen_.”

“Danny…” 

“Don’t fucking ‘Danny’ me!” his anger flared again, as suddenly as it had died. “You’re just… god, you want everyone to run around after you and tell you that you’re wonderful, but god forbid you commit to anything other than the bloody job! Well, here’s a newsflash for you: your work is fucking _mediocre._ Nothing about what you’re doing now is exciting; it’s not going to give any critics hard-ons for you. All this black and white shit that you’re planning for Fashion Week? It’s contrived drivel. It’s been done and re-done and re-re-done a thousand times over. It’s not fucking innovative; it’s not fucking new. It’s just boring, and used-up, and tired. A bit like you.” 

“Well, maybe it’s not my fault that my muse is proving less than fucking inspiring,” Clara hissed, feeling her nails bite into her palms as she squeezed her fists all the more tightly closed, her temper fraying. “Maybe it’s not my fault my passion has _died_.”

“Oh, low blow,” Danny chuckled mirthlessly. “It’s funny how I’m only ever your muse when it’s convenient, isn’t it? For the magazines, and the papers, and Instagram, I’m your beloved, platonic, golden muse. Then at home, I’m your fuck buddy, and the rest of the time? The rest of the time, I don’t fucking matter.”

“Danny-” 

“I’m not bloody stupid, Clara,” he shouted. “I’ve seen the way you look at photos of _that woman_ and I’ve seen what you’re drawing. I’ve seen your search history, as well-” 

“When the fuck-”

“Your passcode hasn’t changed since we met,” he rolled his eyes condescendingly. “I know you’ve got the hots for her. I know you want to fuckher, so why don’t you make her your muse? Why don’t you design rhapsodic collections based off the colour of her cu-”

“Don’t you dare,” Clara spat, giving him a little shove, and he took a step backwards in surprise, a bitter yelp of bemusement escaping his lips as he did so. “Don’t you fucking dare…”

“You know what?” Danny shrugged. “If you’re so fucking turned on by her, and so turned off by me, you can have her. Alright? I’ll make it nice and easy for you. You can bloody well have her. She’s welcome to you; I hope she’s ready to handle you though. I hope she’s got more of a fucking backbone than the last pretty little thing you had your head turned by.” 

“Don’t you dare,” Clara gasped. “Don’t you d-”

Danny smirked nastily and then turned and walked from the workshop without looking back, allowing the door to slam shut behind him. Clara considered, for several agonising seconds, the prospect of running after him, and crying, and begging. There would be more arguing, and tears, and name-calling, but she could win him back, if she set her mind to it; she was sure of it. 

She thought for a moment longer, and then sat down at her desk and screamed.

* * *

Across the city, Sephy was wrapped up in several large blankets, lulled into a sense of half-sleep by the crackling warmth of the flames roaring in the fireplace. There was a half-empty mug of Baileys hot chocolate resting on the floor beside her, and just out of her reach on the coffee table was a plate of mince pies. She nudged her sister with her foot, eliciting a grunt of response, then used the same foot to indicate the plate.

“Oi,” she mumbled hopefully. “Want a mince pie.”

“Lazy cow,” Jenny muttered, nuzzling deeper into the sofa and pointedly not looking at Sephy. “Get them yourself.”

“Can’t be arsed,” Sephy retorted, exaggerating an enormous yawn in a bid to further her cause. “Pass me one.”

“I repeat,” Jenny shot back. “Lazy cow.” 

“River!” Sephy called in the direction of the kitchen, adopting the same needling tone she had so often employed as a teenager, although she shot her sister a grin. “Jenny called me a cow!” 

“Snitch,” Jenny mouthed at her, as Sephy’s stepmother appeared with an enormous colander of half-peeled potatoes tucked under one arm.

“What was the context?” River asked, narrowing her eyes suspiciously as she looked between the two of them.

“She asked me to pass her a mince pie so I called her a lazy cow,” Jenny interjected before Sephy could defend herself, and River rolled her eyes.

“Well, that wasn’t very nice, was it?” River told Jenny with mock sincerity, before turning her attention to Sephy. “But your sister’s right, Sephy. Don’t be a lazy cow.” 

“Hey!” Sephy protested. “Whose side are you on here?! This is… this is… nepotism. I’m calling implicit bias.” 

“I’m so thankful,” River said with a feigned sanctimonious air. “To have been blessed with such mature, sensible, adult children.” 

“Ha ha,” Sephy rolled her eyes, chucking a cushion in her stepmother’s direction that River artfully dodged. “Can we open a present each now that you’ve emerged from the kitchen, or not?”

“I suppose so,” River dropped into the seat opposite them, setting the colander down on the coffee table and then reaching for the pile of presents under the tree, selecting three of the nearest gifts at random and glancing summarily at the labels.

“Jenny,” she chucked one at her youngest daughter, who snagged it from mid-air with lazy ease. 

“Lazy Cow,” the second sailed straight through Sephy’s outstretched hands and landed on her lap.

“And me.”

“Nice throw,” Sephy said, wrinkling her nose fondly and then looking down at the label properly and feeling a stab of confusion.

_To Sephy,_

_Thank you for all your help so far._

_C xx_

Ripping into the paper revealed a pair of beautiful, embossed duck-egg blue leather gloves, and as Sephy turned them over, she felt realisation dawn on her as to who they had been from. 

Why had Clara sent her these? Sephy had barely done _anything_ thus far; she had barely even spoken to the woman, aside from that first strange meeting. Skimming a fingertip over the leather and noting how expensive it felt against her skin, Sephy felt an irrational pang of guilt that she hadn’t sent Clara anything, although she knew it was a ridiculous thought. Why would she have done? She couldn’t have foreseen this. 

She fumbled for her phone, buried deep among the sofa cushions, and tapped out a message to Yvonne.

 _Happy Christmas Eve. Please thank Clara for her gift._

The response was almost instantaneous. 

_It was her pleasure_. 

Sephy frowned down at the screen, her stomach lurching strangely as she read and re-read the words. 

_Her pleasure?_

What, precisely, did that mean?

And more specifically… what did she _want_ it to mean?


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the wake of her argument with Danny, Clara spends Christmas Day alone and preoccupied.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who has commented so far, I love you all! Let’s see how our two dorks are getting on...

Christmas Day was, in itself, never a particularly enviable or enjoyable day as far as Clara was concerned. Regardless of what the tabloid press seemed to be so convinced of – that she was constantly surrounded by a fawning, adoring group of sycophantic hangers-on who lauded her every decision and every action – she preferred her own company wherever strictly possible, although retrospectively, Christmas Day was not the most opportune time to be alone. While she had passed the majority of each of the previous three in relative solitude, Danny had made an appearance towards the latter part of the day on the most recent two, alleviating her from her self-imposed isolation and providing a welcome source of comfort, regardless of her repeated insistences that the passing of a family holiday together had meant nothing significant. At least with him there, there had been conversation, and company, and presents to exchange, and – much later in the evening – the more physical aspect of companionship to enjoy. Most importantly, in her view, was that she hadn’t been faced with eating Christmas dinner – or at least dinner, on Christmas Day – alone, and she’d been able to snuggle up to him as they watched sappy, saccharine-sweet TV specials in the evening.

This year? This year, there was only the crushing, heavy weight of her own self-inflicted loneliness, bearing down on her with increasing magnitude with each passing hour. She woke late, checked her phone, and then rolled out of bed at last as noon approached, padding into the lounge with a distinct sense of trepidation. There was, at her assistant’s insistence, an enormous real tree in the corner of the room, one that she had deigned to decorate two weeks prior, if only to avoid needling questions about her lack of festive cheer; and it now sparkled with artificial light, a pile of gifts underneath it. She felt only a rising wave of nausea as she looked over at them; the childish impulse to rush over and start ripping paper from them merrily long-ago quashed by adulthood, and the stark reality of the life she now led.

Heading into the kitchen, she flicked the kettle on and then perched at the breakfast bar, scrolling through her social media and messages as she waited for the water to boil. There were a few texts from colleagues – Yvonne, her assistant, her publicist – that she knew were borne of duty rather than true friendship or interest, but otherwise the device was devoid of any form of personalised communication wishing her a happy day. She had half-hoped that perhaps Danny hadn’t meant the words of the night before; that he might have texted her overnight, apologising for his foolishness and pleading with her to take him back, but her naïve optimism was both unreasonable and unfounded. He remained stubbornly silent, and while she considered opening Instagram to see whether he’d gifted his followers with his usual cheeky half-naked Christmas portrait, the thought of seeing it sat like a lead weight in her stomach, and so instead she set her phone down as the kettle let out a soft _click_ , reaching for a novelty mug she’d acquired some years prior in Paris and chucking in a teabag.

As she followed the familiar routine – allowing herself to get lost in the ritualistic pouring of hot water; retrieving a teaspoon from the dishwasher; stirring gently anti-clockwise; fishing out the teabag; grabbing milk and watching it swirly ephemerally into the brown liquid – she felt some of the discomfort in her chest ebb a little. Wrapping her hands around the mug and carrying it into the lounge with an involuntarily shiver, she took her usual seat on the sofa and switched on the TV, flicking through channels until she found an appropriate compendium of Christmas songs and then turning up the volume enough to drown out her thoughts as she looked over at the pile of presents again.

Sighing, she got off the sofa and took a seat beside the tree, reaching up and running a fingertip over several of the branches, setting the neatly-arranged baubles and ornaments trembling and releasing a sharp, woody tang of pine resin. The gifts were heaped into regimented little piles; the wrapping on each far too perfect and expensive-looking to have been undertaken by anyone normal – no, this is the result of many months of training, and belies to her the contents of the parcels. She already knows what they’ll be, but she reaches for the first one all the same, unwrapping it with meticulous care and then looking down at the makeup palette contained within with flat, expressionless disinterest. A corporate gift; lazy and impersonal and self-aggrandising. She opened the lid and swiped a finger over the heavily pigmented product contained inside, swatching a purple line across her hand before snapping the palette shut and moving on to the next present.

By the end of her determined opening of gifts, Clara found herself surrounded by makeup, toiletries, jewellery and foodstuffs, none of which she had any particular interest in wearing, using or consuming. They were tokenistic; a tactic used by brands to curry favour among potential or pre-existing clients, or simply to try and overtly win her over in a modern, tolerated form of bribery. She was disinterested in it all; disinterested in how corporate they managed to make special occasions, and she got to her feet, leaving the items where they were as she scooped the wrapping paper into her arms and headed for the bin in the kitchen. Dumping it all inside and squashing it down, she supposed she ought to feel grateful to have been considered as a recipient of such expensive goods, but she felt nothing but disappointment.

She remembered Christmas as a child, and later as a cool, faux-impassive teenager. There had been fun, well-thought-out gifts; gifts she had actually asked for or wanted. DVDs; books; jewellery that had a personal meaning to it; clothes she had picked out; chocolates she enjoyed and toiletries from her favourite shops. She recalled the excitement of making a list, and the rush of warm, pleasantly surprised affection that came when she received something that was not from the prescriptive, neatly-scribed piece of paper she had presented her family with, but instead something they had chosen knowing that she would enjoy it. She’d felt special then, and lucky; she’d felt like she mattered, and that she’d had people who cared about her. Now, the only people interested in delivering gifts to her were those who sought to win her over and pay her money to represent them; as those around her assumed that she could simply buy anything she chose, she was never asked for a list, and nobody ever thought to think outside the box and select something personal, or something they thought she might like. Perhaps they didn’t dare; perhaps they didn’t care; either way the end result was the same lingering sense of disappointment. Clara didn’t know which had been the case this year, but the thought that so few people may care about her bore down on her, her stomach beginning to ache hollowly as she glanced down at her phone again.

She hadn’t expected to hear from her father – he had made his position on her very clear the year before, when she’d phoned him while exceptionally drunk on New Year’s Eve and ranted at him for an hour about his choice of wife. Still, she’d half hoped that he might text or phone her; that he might have been willing to bury the hatchet on today of all days, but instead there was only frosty, ongoing silence from him, and she couldn’t help but feel a swooping sense of disappointment. 

Since her mother’s death, he’d been nothing but cold towards her. Unable to cope with his grief, he’d retreated to a place deep within himself that Clara could never hope to reach, seeming tortured at the mere sight of her, with her own features so strikingly similar to her mother’s that he seemed unable to so much as look at her. He’d become a shell of the man he’d once been; unable to so much as laugh or smile, until Linda from his office had come along and swept him off his feet in ways that Clara had neither understood nor wanted to understand, insinuating herself in their lives, until finally he’d made the crashing, catastrophic decision to marry her, which to Clara had been the final straw after a long list of ill-treatment and lack of care. She and her father had lived in a state of polite antipathy ever since, until she’d made the fateful phone call last year, against Danny’s agonised urging, and now… this. She’d been cut out of his life for good, and it hurt more than she would have cared to admit aloud. 

Deciding to be the bigger person, she pulled up her messages and typed out, neatly and succinctly, with no emojis or kisses or anything that could be considered remotely or dangerously personal: _Happy Christmas to you and Linda._

Pressing ‘send’ before she could second guess her actions, Clara sighed and then headed back out to the lounge, reaching for a particularly appealing-looking bottle of luxury champagne that had been gifted to her by a publication she’d once done an interview for, and starting to undo the foil around the top.

* * *

By three o’clock, Clara was on the tipsier side of sober. She’d eaten very little, other than what she could find in the cupboards, and it wasn’t until she’d fallen over her own feet and landed on the sofa in a giggling heap that she’d realised she should eat, remembered that takeaway services existed, and placed a large order from her favourite Indian restaurant, which was mercifully still delivering. She’d spent the two hours catching up on emails, quaffing champagne and eating shortbread between messages and wondering how, precisely, she’d fallen this low. Spending Christmas totally alone, with no hope of anyone else’s company to alleviate the isolation, was not something that people typically expected of a designer who routinely featured in the kind of glossy magazines that so-called ‘normal’ people read with envy.

She knew how she was supposed to behave; she even attempted it, sometimes, when the expectations on her grew too insistent to ignore. She knew what she was supposed to do, how she was supposed to dress, and who she was supposed to socialise with. She knew she was supposed to drink and party, so she did, but she gleaned little to no joy from doing so. It was just a chore; something to get out of the way so that she might be left alone to her own devices, and – if she was being honest with herself – it was a way to escape the drudgery and loneliness that threatened to crush her like a vice. She’d known what she was getting herself in for when she entered the world of fashion; she’d known about the long hours and the gruelling schedule and the constant love/hate relationship with critics. She’d known all that and considered herself able to withstand it, but the truth was very different. She had never been able to face criticism, for a start, constructive or otherwise, and after one especially crushing review, she remembered nothing of the next two days; they had become lost in a haze of alcohol and drugs that had rendered her entirely, blissfully ignorant of reality and robbed her of her memory. She’d eventually met the perpetrator; a particularly odious fashion critic called Frances Kovarian, and she’d had her revenge, in kind. Her red wine had found itself ‘accidentally’ spilling across Kovarian’s white dress at a particularly important event, and Clara hadn’t had it in her to feign an air of apologetic embarrassment.

No, she was ill suited to this world and all that it brought with it, but she could no more give up designing than she could give up breathing. It was hard-wired into her; something she’d always adored and something she had always striven for. She remembered being very small and scribbling onto her dolls’ clothes with felt-tip pins; remembered her mother’s enthusiastic encouragement, where Clara had expected chastisement or anger.

So it was that once her food arrived, Clara took it with her into her home office, unlocking her iPad and opening the project she had been working on the previous evening. The outline of a garment was laid bare onscreen in black and white, with sinuous flowing lines and miles of material that flowed behind it, as though stirred by a gentle breeze. Reaching for a stylus, she rotated the design 360 degrees, examining it carefully as she helped herself to a poppadum and started to work. 

From somewhere behind her in the lounge, _Do They Know It’s Christmas?_ blared forth from the TV.

“Do I fuck,” Clara muttered to herself, checking her phone for the hundredth time and finding it devoid of notifications. “Merry bloody Christmas to me.”


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sephy finds herself summoned to Clara's offices for the second time, where she makes a catastrophic blunder...

The second day of January seemed an unusual choice for a business meeting to Sephy, but she supposed that there was nothing usual or conventional about the world of fashion. Much the art world that she inhabited, there was no such concept as ‘set hours’, and she knew first-hand that working in the industry was far from a 9 to 5 job. She remembered, with a tinge of sadness, her father dashing off to meetings at weekends and in the evenings; leaving for work before the sun had risen, and being conspicuously absent from several major milestones in her teenage years thanks to his unwavering commitment to building his brand, and his studious lack of commitment to spending time with his own family in the same copious amounts.

As she sped across the city on the Tube, nursing a lingering sense of exhaustion that was yet to fade from the excitement of one of River’s legendary New Year’s Eve parties, she couldn’t help but wonder what kind of state Clara would be in. She’d spent the odd free moments she’d had over the festive period googling the designer and wandering around various gossip websites, filling in the blanks around what she already knew. From what she could glean, Clara appeared to be a fan of raucous nights out surrounded by minor – and sometimes major – celebrities, and there was no doubt that she would have been partaking in the uproarious celebrations occurring two days’ prior, and Sephy half-wondered whether Clara would be in a fit state to a hold a conversation, let alone a business meeting.

She supposed that Yvonne might be there to finalise her and Ryan’s contracts, and Sephy couldn’t help but smile at the prospect of seeing the agent again; wondering whether there may be another sparring match, or whether this time Yvonne might fall into line, motivated as she now was by the financial implications of having Sephy on the books. It had barely been a month since that first, chance meeting with Psi on Oxford Street, and yet she simultaneously felt as though she’d both made quantum leaps of progress into the fashion world, while also remaining almost entirely sedentary. She had an agent now, yes, and she’d had headshots taken and been booked onto a job – _this_ job; but she knew almost nothing about how Clara Oswald fitted into the wider world of luxury fashion, and she’d met with her new employer only once. Aside from the strange gift on Christmas Eve, their contact had been minimal, and she had a curious sense that she may have imagined the whole affair; as though it were some kind of dream or nightmare, playing out in stilted slow-motion. It was only the presence of the beautiful, embossed gloves that reassured her she hadn’t dreamed it; she had thought about wearing them today, before deciding that it may appear she were trying too hard. 

Disembarking at Bond Street, she began to trudge through the biting January wind towards Clara’s office building, hands thrust into her pockets for protection from the winter weather and her head bowed against the howling gale. As she walked, she wondered what exactly would happen today – the summons had been vague, stating only that her presence was required, and she wondered whether perhaps she might get to see some of Clara’s work in person for the first time. She’d seen it online, zooming in on photos of tall, bored-looking models both on catwalks and in editorials, and she found it all… oddly stilted. The clothes were restrained and conventional in a way that Clara was not; they seemed like elegant, over-priced workwear, and critics seemed to agree with her appraisal that it was beautiful yet uninspiring. There were dresses and skirts and blouses in shades of monochrome, all of which elicited lukewarm responses from fellow designers and journalists alike, and after reading repeated comparisons between Clara’s current collections and her earlier work, Sephy found herself trawling further back through search engine listings, until she alighted on information pertaining to Clara’s earliest work, both under her father’s tutelage and on her own merit at her own brand. 

The difference was immediately, instantaneously obvious. There were bright shades of blood-red and navy blue and bottle-green; dresses that were singularly daring and dresses that were somewhat more functional, yet still beautifully tailored and expensively-made; blouses of ice-blue silk and sunset-orange velvet; button-up checked pinafores and dappled red dresses with schoolgirl-esque collars; even, notably, a knee-length flapper dress adorned with shimmering gold beading, almost indecently see-through and worn by the designer herself to a particularly prestigious Fashion Week after-party. 

The contrast between the glorious technicolour of Clara’s past and the stark white, grey and black palette of the present was striking. Sephy could have spent hours wondering as to why and how the designer’s seeming fall from grace and into such mundane conventionality as she now found herself had occurred, but she didn’t need to. The commencement of the decline could be pinpointed with almost laser-like precision to almost precisely the month that Sephy’s father had died: there was a tangible drop-off in quality, colour and cut that seemed to last for several years, then a well-received collection that had seemed to stir some excitement and optimism in the brand again, before the gentle, slow decline that brought them back to now. Clara seemed to still enjoy the prestige and excitement that had come with her earlier work; seemed to still be dining out on it, both literally and figuratively, but there was none of the old excitement and anticipation surrounding her Fashion Week show in six weeks’ time; no critical stir; no optimism.

There was a small, bitter part of Sephy that considered this good; she couldn’t quite silence it, so she forced it deep down inside herself and tried to ignore it with as much energy as she could muster. Clara had been more involved in her father’s life than she had been towards the end, and it was this thought, this flicker of resentment, that was fuelling the hateful notion that Clara deserved her present lack of critical interest and positive reception. Sephy could have allowed these toxic thoughts to fester and grow; could have allowed them to sow themselves and take root, but she refused to do so. Regardless of Clara’s role in her father’s life, she was still, first and foremost, just a _person_ ; still a vulnerable individual, if their previous meeting and Clara’s panic attack was anything to go on, and Sephy felt the stirrings of sympathy towards the quasi-stranger. The marked absence of colour and flair in Clara’s work stemming from the time that her father died was strongly indicative of a woman in mourning; a woman who had cared about her father; and Sephy was reminded – not for the first time – that he had touched many lives other than her own, and often more deeply.

Would he be proud of her for what she was doing now? Would he be pleased to see her entering the world she had stridently disavowed for so many years? He would undoubtedly be happy to see her working with Clara; to see her spending time with his beloved protégée, working with her on her new collection. He would- 

A hand seized hold of her shoulder, yanking her sharply from her train of thought, and she let out an instinctive scream, wheeling round and lashing out at the offending party with a clenched fist. She felt her hand connect with something horribly angular; felt it crunch under her hand; and then she realised with mounting horror that the person who grabbed at her was Ryan, and what she’d hit had been his nose.

“Oh, my god,” she said at once, embarrassment and apology flooding through her. She felt her cheeks turn maroon, and immediately began hunting through her pockets in search of something to stem the blood that was already beginning to spurt down his face and over his chin, and he raised his hand and clamped it over his nose. “Oh, my god, Ryan, I am _so_ sorry, I was in my own world, and…” 

“S’ok,” he said thickly, shrugging apologetically as he spoke. “S’by fault. Shou’nt ha’ glabbed ‘oo.”

“God, I’m so sorry,” Sephy said again, loathing herself as he moved his hand a fraction and more blood oozed over his fingers. “I’m such a moron, I just… I didn’t think, I just reacted, and…” 

“S’fine,” he said without malice, fishing a faded fleecy glove out of his pocket and pressing it against his nostrils as a makeshift tissue. With considerably more clarity now that he wasn’t clutching his nose, he said cheerfully: “Don’t think it’s broken.” 

“If it is, I can’t apologise enough, I really can’t. I’m such a bloody idiot, I’m so sorry, Ryan-” 

“Really, I don’t think it is. Broke it last year playing footie and it proper cracked, felt like I could just wiggle it about and it’d come off. Doesn’t feel like that this time. Nice right hook though, even if it missed breaking me nose.” 

“I’m _so_ sorry…”

“It’s fine,” he said magnanimously, holding up his free hand to stop her. “Really, it’s fine. I’ll just look rugged and interesting now during the meeting.” 

“What if it swells up?” 

“Then it swells up. I can ice it; it isn’t the end of the world.” 

“Fashion Week is in six-” 

“I heal fast,” Ryan shrugged, although there was a flicker of something unreadable in his expression. “Gotta, given the dyspraxia.”

Sephy arched an eyebrow. 

“Alright, I heal at a normal rate, I just don’t like sitting about doing nothing like all the doctors tell you to do. It’s boring, innit? Just sitting around, watching telly, eating crisps…” his expression changed, becoming abruptly dream-like. “Actually that sounds wicked. You couldn’t break my arm for me, could you?”

Despite herself, Sephy laughed. “No, I couldn’t. I don’t know how and I don’t want to try. Use this as an excuse to sit around and eat crisps, then I might feel a bit less guilty about smacking you one.” 

“Honestly, you don’t need to feel guilty. I think I’d punch some random bloke if he grabbed me in the street, and I _am_ a bloke.” 

Sephy laughed again, then grimaced. “God, that wanker of a doorman isn’t going to be any more predisposed to let us in this time if you’re bleeding, is he?” 

“I’m sorry, sir,” Ryan adopted a serious, saint-like expression. “I was just minding me own business and then this crazy blonde woman whacked me in the face. It weren’t my fault.” 

“I already said-” 

“I’m just messing with you,” he grinned. “Thought I should rehearse me speech. Come on, let’s go scare Jeeves.” 

“Wasn’t Jeeves a butler?” 

“Yeah but I dunno any books about famous doormen, so Jeeves was the next best person to use in this analogy.” 

“Fair,” Sephy chuckled, and together they set off towards Clara’s building. From time to time, Ryan would lift the glove away from his nose to check whether the bleeding had stopped, and as the doorman they had both previously so disliked came into sight, Ryan let out a relieved sigh as he lifted the glove away and found that he was no longer oozing blood. Wiping the area around his nose with one of the fingertips, he lobbed the blood-stained item into a nearby bin and gave an experimental sniff. 

“We’re all good. Jeeves can shove right off.” 

Sephy chanced a look over at him, wincing in empathy as she did so. “God, that looks sore. Was chucking the glove away a good idea? What if it starts bleeding again?” 

“Good thing about gloves is they come in pairs. Besides, I’m not bleeding now, so I win.”

As they approached the building, the doorman affixed them both with a judgemental stare, before holding open the doors for them both with a distinctly icy manner, as though seeking to telegraph what exactly he thought of their presence in the building whose doors he kept watch over. As they crossed the threshold, Sephy and Ryan exchanged a bemused eyeroll, heading towards the lifts as they did so. 

“He rather fancies himself, doesn’t he?” Ryan said with bemusement, puffing his chest up and holding onto imagined lapels, mimicking the pompous man they had just passed. “Thinks he’s really something.” 

“He’s got a jacket, Ryan,” Sephy deadpanned. “A _fancy_ jacket. Don’t you know how important that makes him? Nothing conveys status quite like a fancy jacket.” 

“He’s a bloody doorman,” Ryan groused, as the lift doors slid open and they stepped inside. “Not a soldier, or nothing. Why does he need a fancy jacket with bloody epaulettes and shit? Do they think that manning a door is like being in combat? I’m sure there’s some dodgy folk wanting to get in here, but not dodgier than like… the Taliban, and you don’t see the Army going around in big posh jackets like that.” 

“You do at ceremonial dinners, and weddings.”

“Yeah, but that’s different. They’d be well easy targets if they wore all that posh stuff on the front line; he’s well easy to spot and all. It’s like asking to be targeted as a doorman, really, wearing all that get-up. Makes you look a total tosser, and I bet it’s dry-clean only.” 

Sephy snorted with laughter. “Probably.”

“I’m morally opposed to dry-clean only clothes,” Ryan said with a deadpan expression. “I can’t be dealing with it. Me mum, when I was growing up, she never had money for that sort of thing. And even now I’m like… why would I spend money to have things cleaned all special-like when I’ve got a washing machine? It’s a bloody good washing machine as well; you can download special wash cycles to your phone.” 

“What year are you living in?” Sephy looked over at him with incredulity. “3018? The rest of us are just stuck here in 2018. Do you know what my washing machine does? It does regular, short, woollens, or delicates. I think if you’re feeling fancy, you can change the temperature. That’s your limit." 

The lift doors opened on the thirteenth floor with a _ping_ , and there was a shriek of horror.

“Oh my _god!_ ” Yvonne wailed. “Ryan, what the hell have you done to your _face?!_ ”


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is entirely unconventional, but then Clara is an entirely unconventional designer. One who has a surprising proposition for Sephy.

“It was-” Sephy began, but Ryan shot her a warning look and said more loudly: 

“Stacked it on the Tube and smacked it on a handrail.”

“You…” Yvonne frowned; her expression baffled. 

“Fell over,” Ryan clarified, with only the barest hint of bemusement. “Fell over me own feet on the escalator, like a tit. Nothing’s broken, though, and it’s stopped bleeding now. Should be fine.” 

“It’s a mess.” 

“Yeah, and it’s got six weeks to stop being a mess,” Ryan raised his eyebrows, as though daring her to challenge him. “It’ll be fine.” 

“Well, you can break that news to Clara,” Yvonne retorted, turning and leading the way towards the office that Sephy so vividly recalled from their previous visit. “And see how she takes it. I will not be dropping that bombshell.” 

“No one expects you to,” Sephy said coolly. “We’re quite capable of telling people things. You’ve signed us; that doesn’t mean you need to hold our hands like we’re naughty kids.” 

Yvonne arched one eyebrow delicately, then let out a low chuckle. “Don’t make me regret signing you both by cheeking me,” she warned them both, but her tone was warm and lacking in any real threat. “We’ll finalise your contracts after Clara’s seen you, alright?” 

“Fine by me,” Sephy acquiesced, and Ryan gave a non-committal shrug. “How is she?” 

Yvonne looked visibly disconcerted by the question, and silence fell for several beats as she considered how to answer. 

“Fine,” she said after a moment, with the air of someone who was choosing their words carefully. “She’s… fine.”

Before Sephy could ask anything else, Yvonne had shown them into Clara’s office without bothering to knock; instead, she simply opened the door and bundled them through before closing the door behind them with a _snap_. Sephy had the distinct feeling of being shoved into a trap, but she attempted to quell that feeling as it rose in her chest, instead taking a deep breath and looking over at the figure who was sat with her back to them. 

“Urm,” she began, feeling an odd sense of responsibility to break the silence. It was, after all, she who had just asked after their employer, and so it would be she that led the way now with social pleasantries. “Hi.” 

Clara turned in her chair, and Sephy fought the urge to gasp. The designer’s face was drawn and pale, with dark circles under her eyes that makeup could not fully conceal. Her hair hung limply around her face, and her expression was oddly blank and unfocused, as though she had been miles away before she was interrupted. She was dressed in a shirt that Sephy recognised as one of her own designs, and as Clara unfolded herself from her chair and rose to her feet, she noted that there was an ominous red stain around the cuff of Clara’s left sleeve. 

“Hi,” Clara said flatly, appearing visibly unsettled by their presence. “Urm. I would say come in, but… you’re already in.”

“So we are,” Sephy said in a bright voice, using the tone she had perfected during years of family arguments. She had always played the peacemaker; had always been the one to smooth things over; and she fell into the role again now with natural familiarity, smiling kindly at Clara. “Did you have a good Christmas?” 

“Yeah,” Clara said, with a kind of airy bluster that she couldn’t quite pull off convincingly. She waved one hand vaguely as she continued: “Yeah, it was great. Happy new year.” 

The door of the office opened again and a nervous-looking acolyte backed into the room bearing a tray containing three large mugs, a teapot, a milk jug, a plate of chocolate digestives, and a sugar bowl. Setting it down on the desk with a nervous squeak, she all but ran out of the room once she had done so, the door slamming shut behind her. 

“Wow,” Ryan said in muted awe, his eyes drawn to the biscuits beside the teapot. “You have people who just… bring you tea?” 

“Yes,” Clara’s mouth twisted into a reluctant grin, gesturing to the sofas in the corner of the room, and the two of them sat as Clara carried over the tray and set it down on the expensive-looking glass coffee table. “I hope tea is alright. If not, I can have Heather nip out to Starbucks for alternatives.” 

“Tea is fine,” Sephy acquiesced, and Ryan murmured an agreement. “Why’s she so nervous?” 

“She’s only been here a week. Thinks I’m terrifying.” 

“ _Are_ you?” Ryan asked with a bare-faced boldness that Sephy couldn’t help but admire.

“I don’t know,” Clara’s smile changed into a good-natured teasing smirk. “Would you say that I am?”

“I don’t know you well enough,” Ryan shrugged, speaking with a frankness that surprised Sephy. “Not gonna pass judgement yet.”

“Come on, surely you’ve googled me,” Clara probed, arching one eyebrow delicately. “Haven’t you heard? I’m _terrifying_.” 

“If I believed everything I read on the internet,” Ryan deadpanned. “I’d have become a drug dealer, because according to the press, that’s the only job prospect for a black bloke of my age in London.” 

“Checkmate,” Clara said with bemusement, leaning over and pouring the tea. As she did so, she seemed to feel Sephy’s eyes on her, and as she set the teapot down, she followed Sephy’s gaze down to her cuff, her right hand reaching over and skimming a thumb over the crimson-stained fabric. 

“One of my Copics exploded on me this morning,” she said with a small shrug, as though that explained everything, then caught sight of Ryan’s uncomprehending expression and added for his benefit: “A pen. One of my marker pens. I don’t usually use them; this is why.” 

“Are you…” 

“Do you really think I’d be stupid enough to turn up to a business meeting covered in my own blood?” Clara asked, folding back the offending cuff until the red stain was hidden from sight. “I’m not Ryan.” 

“I… what?” 

“What happened to your face?” Clara asked breezily, handing Sephy her mug and then gesturing to the milk and sugar, and Ryan coughed in embarrassment. 

“Stacked it on the Tube. Escalator.” 

“Ah. And Sephy’s knuckles are bloody… just coincidentally?” 

Sephy looked down at her hand, noting for the first time the tell-tale rust-like substance settled in the fine lines of her knuckles. Blushing, she concentrated at her lap, feeling her cheeks burn and knowing that Clara was staring at her with acute interest.

“I…” she began unsteadily, unsure how to word the matter. “It…” 

“It’s my fault,” Ryan said magnanimously. “She was minding her own business, walking along in her own little world and I said hey and she didn’t hear me so I caught hold of her by the shoulder and she swung for me. Instinct, innit? Totally understandable, frankly; I think I’d deck anyone that grabbed me while I was minding my own.” 

“Well,” Sephy chanced a glance at Clara and found her to be grinning as she spoke. “As long as there’s no animosity between you two, because I can’t have my models at each other’s throats.” 

“No animosity there at all,” Ryan said brightly. “None whatsoever. Completely understand why she did it; don’t blame her a bit.” 

“Sephy?” 

“No animosity,” she confirmed in a small voice. “Just embarrassment.”

“Good,” Clara added milk to her own mug, then passed the jug to Sephy. “Ryan, do you need that looked at?” 

“Nah,” he said with a shrug, as Sephy availed herself of the milk jug and passed it over to him. “I’ll ice it later, but it ain’t broken.” 

“Sure?” 

“Yeah, sure. Broken it before and it made this whack clicking noise; didn’t do that this time. She’s got a mean right hook, but she needs to work on her swing if she wants to break some noses.” 

“It was an acc-” 

Ryan laughed, and she found herself laughing too. 

“Well,” Clara said with a smile. “Just don’t start taking chunks out of each other on purpose. That’s all I ask.”

* * *

“And this…” Clara pushed open a door, holding it open for Sephy and giving a grand little gesture of invitation. Sephy crossed the threshold with trepidation, finding herself stood in a large workshop, where a handful of people were sat at workstations in companionable silence, completely focused on the items they were working on. “Is where the magic happens. Some of it, anyway.” 

After their mugs of tea had been drunk and further sundry pleasantries exchanged, Clara had got right to the point: she wanted to show them what she did and how she worked. Judging by Ryan’s expression, this was an entirely uncommon occurrence, and yet Clara seemed so sincerely and openly enthusiastic to show them what she was working on and how the creative process worked that they had both fallen into step behind her as she took them on a tour of the premises. Ryan had fallen by the wayside in the marketing department – he’d been studying it at college, before he gave everything up to try and make it in the modelling world – and so the two women had continued alone, lapsing into easy silence in between Clara’s exuberant gesticulating and proud explanations. 

“So this is…” Sephy looked around, noting the framed hand-drawn designs that adorned the walls at regular intervals, and the reams of fabric that were arranged neatly in one corner.

“The atelier.” 

“The workshop.” 

“It sounds better in French,” Clara wrinkled her nose. “Hence the name.”

“What are they making?” Sephy stepped closer to one of the workers, looking down at the elaborate garment to which she was hand-stitching tiny silver beads.

“Haute couture, on this side of the room. I have a loyal client base in that regard; they come to me every few weeks or months for new pieces.”

“And the other side of the room?”

“They’re making mockups,” Clara led the way over to the other side of the room, lifting a sheet of paper from one worker’s desk and showing Sephy. “I have the idea, I get it down on paper or my iPad, I bring it here, and they make it happen. Like a rough draft, or a prototype.” 

Sephy looked down at the detailed illustration in her hands. It depicted an elegant black gown with a plunging neckline, the skirt falling in shimmering layers of gold and black to the floor. Scribbles around the outside noted fabric types, measurements, and what she assumed were stitch types and colour names. 

“It’s… pretty.” 

“I won’t make you wear it if you don’t want to,” Clara said with amusement, the corner of her mouth twisting into a smile. “Don’t worry. Besides, these are just mockups. They’re not finished, and a lot of them never leave this room… except on me.” 

“Why?”

“Oh, a lot of things don’t work. A lot of things don’t translate well into real-life. They don’t flow right, or feel right, and we try and try and try again, but we just can’t get them to work. Sometimes, if they’re especially interesting or provocative or dramatic, I call them my fuck-ups, and take them home. It’s good press to be seen in them, and god knows, I need it.” 

An awkward silence fell, and Sephy became acutely aware that the worker whose desk they were stood beside was listening to their conversation with great interest, although her attention was seemingly fixated on the dress she was working on. 

“The dress you wore after Fashion Week in October…” Sephy began, feeling her cheeks flush at the mere memory of the garment she had seen online. “The 1920s one, with the gold… was that a… a fuck-up?” 

Clara was silent for a moment, then she let out a delighted laugh. “Oh, so you’ve been doing your research?” she asked teasingly, and Sephy dropped her gaze to the floor. “No, that was a one-off. It was Vivienne Westwood’s party, and I wasn’t about to wear anything of hers – all rather dated, really, and it does look so tremendously try-hard to turn up to someone’s party in _their_ label – but she does rather love shock value, so I had the girls whip that up for me. Took the best part of two weeks, and it itched like crazy, but it was worth it.” 

“Why didn’t you just… wear something underneath?” Sephy asked, finding her voice at last. Clara shot her a bemused look, leading the way through the atelier and into a second room; one that was entirely more luxurious, and totally empty save for the two of them. “Surely that would’ve stopped it itching.” 

“You’ve seen the photos, haven’t you?” Clara asked with a smirk, switching on the lights and revealing a large studio with an extensive desk sweeping along one wall. “You tell me.”

Sephy frowned, thinking back to the pictures she’d scrolled through on her phone. She’d felt a hot rush of embarrassment as she’d realised precisely how revealing the dress was, and clicked away almost at once. “I don’t know,” she said honestly. 

“That dress was almost entirely see-through,” Clara said pointedly. “The only things preserving my modesty were nipple covers, and a tiny little thong. It was the best publicity I could’ve drummed up; sales went up, and Viv nearly had an aneurysm when she saw me. It was glorious.” 

“But surely it would be better if-” Sephy blurted, before clamping her mouth shut and biting down on her lip. 

“Surely it would be better if I didn’t need to be mostly-naked to sell my clothes?” Clara arched an eyebrow in a silent challenge. “That’s what you were going to say, wasn’t it?”

“Maybe,” Sephy mumbled.

“Yes, it would,” Clara shrugged, evidently accustomed to the question. “But that doesn’t work, so sometimes I have to do things I don’t want to do to keep people interested. And that dress kept people _very_ interested.” 

“You shouldn’t have to do that.” 

“That’s the world I live in.” 

“Well, that world should change!” Sephy snapped. “There shouldn’t be the requirement for provocation in order to gain exposure; women shouldn’t feel that they have to use their bodies in order to draw attention to their work and the things that they’re proud of. That shouldn’t be something that anyone ever has to do.” 

Clara was affixing her with an odd, appraising look that Sephy couldn’t read.

“What?” she asked nervously. “What? Did I say something wrong?” 

“No, you didn’t,” Clara grinned suddenly. “Come out with me.” 

“I’m sorry?!” 

“Tonight. Come out with me. See what the world I live in is like. It’s your world too, now. You might as well meet it head-on.” 

“Where?” 

“Drama. Park Lane.” 

Sephy had heard the name; had heard tell of the place, but had never considered that she might one day be considered important enough to set foot inside. Everyone had heard the rumours, and she’d seen the photos of Clara stumbling out of there in the small hours, and she felt a lurch of apprehension. She wasn’t usually one for partying or clubbing; wasn’t a fan of drinking, or any of the countless other things that supposedly went on inside. 

And yet… there was something so hopeful and yearning in Clara’s expression that she found herself saying:

“Yeah, alright.”


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Arriving at Drama, Sephy is plunged into a world of excess that she's unaccustomed to. Clara takes it all in her stride... perhaps a little too comfortably.

At first glance, Drama did not appear especially elite or exciting. With an entrance located on a grubby back street in Mayfair, the building had an ugly 1960s appearance, which contrasted sharply with the immaculate white townhouse-style façade of the casino that lay directly across the road. As their car drew to a halt outside, Sephy found herself regretting her acceptance of this invitation. Clara had picked her up from her flat half an hour ago in an Uber, although it was distinctly unlike any Uber that Sephy had ever taken; for one thing, her budget did not usually stretch to Jaguars, and it set the tone for the evening: this entire experience would be outside of her price range in the real world, in which fashion designers did not pay for everything for her.

“Doesn’t look like much,” Clara said, as though she had read Sephy’s mind. “But the inside is mind-blowing. Don’t judge a book by its cover.” 

“It looks…” Sephy wrinkled her nose, trying to find a polite adjective: “Dated.”

“That’s just the outside. Inside isn’t like that at all,” Clara arched an eyebrow. “Don’t you trust me?” 

_I barely know you_ , Sephy thought to herself. _Except by reputation._

“Of course I do,” she said quickly, looking outside again, and it was then that she noticed the photographers already swarming around the entrance like flies. “What are…” 

“They’re fine. Just ignore them and follow me.”

“But-” 

Before she could finish voicing her concerns, Clara had unclipped her seatbelt and exited the car in one smooth movement, and Sephy let out a yelp of protest, undoing her belt before sliding across the seat and out of the car door with somewhat less elegance. Flashes popped on all sides as Clara linked their arms together and headed for the entrance, and Sephy felt a distinct, lurching sense of claustrophobia as photographers swarmed closer, closer, closer, and- 

The doors opened and they were swept inside by the tide of the crowd, the bouncers holding back the paparazzi as they shut the doors behind them, deadening the sudden clamour that had arisen and depositing Sephy and Clara in a richly-carpeted entrance hall. Concealed lighting pulsed and thrummed in time with the music that they could now hear through the walls, which coupled with the warm red and purple hues gave the room a strangely organic feel. 

“Ryan,” Clara said breathlessly. “Would have been very handy to deal with that lot.” 

Ryan had, upon being presented with an invitation to Drama, declined with visible regret. He had prior commitments, or so he said – Sephy strongly suspected that he’d be going to get his nose checked over by a doctor, and she felt another pang of regret. 

“I thought you said the press weren’t that interested in you,” Sephy shot back. “They seemed very interested just now.” 

“Well, I’m wearing a largely non-existent dress,” Clara winked at her. “And besides, it’s my _clothes_ they don’t like. They think _I’m_ fascinating.” 

“Why?” 

Clara gave her a withering look. “I’m young, attractive, and female, and I don’t wear a lot of clothing.”

“Don’t objectify yourself.” 

“Why?” Clara grinned wickedly. “I’m a good-looking object.”

Sephy’s gaze flicked down to Clara’s dress. It was navy blue and stylised like many overlapping exotic blooms and leaves; the hemline barely covered Clara’s arse, and the neckline left little to the imagination, exposing as it did much of Clara’s shoulders and the uppermost parts of her breasts. There were strategic cut-outs around the hem and necklines, revealing even more skin, and Sephy wondered how, precisely, Clara intended to dance without flashing things that she probably didn’t want to flash. That being said, she wasn’t sure that anyone would object to catching sight of such things – Clara was, at her own admission, extremely attractive.

“Is this a Clara Oswald fuck-up?” Sephy asked, praying that she wasn’t blushing. “The dress?”

“Oh, yes,” Clara let out a peal of laughter. “We made it and I tried it on and it was obvious that, you know, people wouldn’t want to wear this in public. Like, my tits are _basically_ out, and don’t even get me started on everything else… and I’m not exactly tall. So, it entered my wardrobe instead, and I’ve got some good use out of it.” 

A member of staff appeared from seemingly nowhere. “Miss Oswald?” he asked brightly, keeping his gaze firmly on her face. Sephy had the distinct impression that he was used to Clara and her rejection of practical amounts of fabric. “It’s a pleasure to see you again. Who’s your companion?” 

“Persephone Lautrec. She’s with me.” 

“And Mr Pink…?” 

Clara’s expression clouded over. “Indisposed,” she muttered sourly. “Very much indisposed.”

A look was exchanged between the two of them, and the employee murmured tactfully: 

“Very sorry, my apologies, Miss Oswald. Welcome to Drama, Miss Lautrec. Expect the loud. Expect the abnoxious. Expect drama.” 

With that, he opened a set of concealed doors in the wall with a flourish, and the volume of the pounding music increased exponentially. With a wicked grin, Clara took Sephy by the hand and led her inside, the sudden darkness discombobulating her almost at once.

“‘Abnoxious’ ?” she shouted in Clara’s direction with a grimace. “What sort of word is that?” 

“A portmanteau,” Clara shot back, weaving expertly between revellers and heading for a set of gold doors on the other side of the room. “Abnormal and obnoxious.”

“What kind of place have you brought me to?” Sephy wondered aloud, but Clara only laughed. Reaching the golden doors, they were held open for the pair by an enormous security guard, revealing a room that was blindingly, overwhelmingly gold. Leather sofas lined the edges of the room, each upholstered in shimmering gold, and matching tiles reached from the floor to halfway up the walls, where large sheets of burnished golden-hued metal served as mirrors. An enormous bar fitted entirely with golden fixtures took up one wall, and Sephy let out a low whistle. 

It was simultaneously impressive and tacky, and as Clara flung herself down on one the leather banquettes, Sephy took a tentative seat beside her, looking around at the assorted clientele who also made up the room’s occupants. There were a number of soap stars in one corner; a musician that Sephy had seen on the cover of the Evening Standard two nights previously; a comedian; and in one corner, a gaggle of models – actual models; ones that Sephy had seen online modelling for the likes of Prada and Dior. She felt a sudden rush of shame, as though she’d been caught doing something disgusting; who did she think she was, inhabiting a world like this and calling herself a model?

Clara followed her gaze and let out a derisive snort. “Bunch of stuck-up bitches,” she said in a low voice, again reading Sephy’s mind. “I think they look like horses, personally. Stick insects bred with horses.” 

“But…” 

“Please. You’re much better looking than they are. You actually eat, as well. At least, I assume you eat. God, sorry, I should’ve… we could’ve gone to Nobu…” 

“I eat. I ate. It wasn’t Nobu, but it wasn’t bad.” 

“What was it?” 

“Fish and chips,” Sephy said with frank honesty, and Clara laughed. “What?” 

“God, that’s so… I haven’t had fish and chips in years. We used to have them all the time at home.” 

“At home?”

A cloud seemed to pass over Clara’s face, and she got to her feet before continuing in a high, false voice: “If I’m going to talk about this, I need a bloody drink. What are you having?” 

“Oh. Urm. I don’t really…” 

“Come on,” Clara reached into her bag and extracted a small, gleaming credit card. “It’s on me.” 

“You decide.”

Clara arched an eyebrow and headed over to the bar, returning with two crystal glasses and setting them down on the table. 

“He’s bringing it over.” 

“Bringing what-”

Before she could even finish forming her question, a bottle of Veuve Clicquot arrived on their table in a golden bucket of ice, and Clara let out a giggle of glee. 

“Jesus Christ,” Sephy said under her breath, as Clara poured them each a glass and then knocked back most of hers in one go. 

“What were we talking about?” Clara said brightly, refilling her glass and gesturing that Sephy should take a sip from hers. “Ah – my home. I’m from Blackpool – we used to have fish and chips a lot when I was a kid. Now? Not so much… there’s not any decent chippies where I live, and if it’s not local then it’s cold by the time it gets to me.” 

“You could go out and get it and eat it on the way back.”

“I don’t have time to do things like that.” 

“But you have time to do things like this?”

“This is different.” 

“In what way?”

“This is expected of me,” Clara said quietly, and her expression changed. She looked suddenly vulnerable, and the hand holding her glass trembled for a moment before she could recover her composure. “This is what people want. And this? This is when things don’t hurt quite so badly.”

“What things?” Sephy asked, taking a sip of her champagne to please Clara. “Things like… why you looked so weird when that guy asked about Mr Pink? That’s the guy, right? The guy Ryan and I saw you with before. Your muse.”

She half-expected Clara to tell her to fuck off; to shout and make a scene and tell her that it was none of her business. But instead, her face crumpled, and she downed the rest of her second glass in one gulp. 

“He left me,” she confessed tremulously. “Christmas Eve.” 

“Left you?”

“We were… sort of… I don’t know. Together? Not together? But really really not-together now. He walked out.” 

“Jesus, I’m sorry.” 

“He was… he was a prick sometimes but sometimes he wasn’t and he…” Clara swallowed thickly. “I don’t know. I just… I don’t know.”

“Is that why you invited me tonight?”

“What?”

“You didn’t want to be alone?” 

“I guess,” Clara shrugged, taking a sip of her drink. Her words began to flow together as she continued: “Was hoping he might be here. He’d be… he’d be really jealous if he knew about this.” 

“Jealous? Of me?” 

“Yeah,” Clara let out a giggle, her mood suddenly becoming ebullient. “He was so jealous of you.” 

“Why?” 

“He thought I _fancy_ you.”

“Do you?” 

Clara clamped a hand over her mouth, letting out another, more scandalised giggle. “I don’t know,” she mumbled through her fingers. “I don’t know, I’m not… I don’t…” 

“It’s a yes or no question,” Sephy forced herself to say calmly, but her heart was thundering in her chest. Could Clara really feel like that about her? Was it possible that she did? “So, yes or no answer.” 

“I don’t…” Clara was still giggling, slumped against Sephy as she did so. She was most of the way into her third glass of champagne already, and the ease with which she was knocking it back suggested a habitual drinker, regardless of what she had told Sephy about keeping up appearances. “I suppose so, yes. You’re just so… interesting. You don’t give a fuck, and you’re all mysterious… I googled you and…” 

“You _what_?” Sephy blurted. She wasn’t sure why she was so surprised; after all, she had googled Clara. Still, panic forced its way up her throat, hot and insidious. 

“Ooh, don’t get all worried!” Clara finished her glass. “I didn’t do anything naughty with your pictures. Mainly because there were _hardly any_. You’re like a cryptid; you don’t exist before… before… oh, I don’t know the year, but it’s funny, s’all. You’re this tall, blonde, mysterious stranger.” 

“And that does it for you?”

“It does,” Clara confessed, then clapped her hand over her mouth again, letting out a squeal of mirth. “Oh, god, I shouldn’t’ve… shouldn’t… oh no.” 

Sephy surveyed her with a cool expression. “Why did you hire me?” 

“Because you’re pretty.” 

“Why did Danny leave you?” 

“Because he knew I thought you’re pretty.”

“Why did you invite me here tonight? It wasn’t to show me the fashion world; that’s bollocks. If you wanted to show me the fashion world, you’d have taken me to Vogue House, or one of those upmarket boutiques in Chelsea.”

“Because,” Clara let out a breathy little sigh. “Because I wanted to get to know you.” 

“And?” 

“I wanted… I want… I want you to know…” 

“Mm?”

Their faces were close together now, illuminated by the gold light reflecting off every surface in the room. 

“I’m absolutely obsessed with you,” Clara whispered, biting down on her lower lip. Her eyes seemed to inflate as she spoke, and Sephy felt a lurch in her stomach as Clara’s pupils dilated. “Absolutely, utterly obsessed.” 

“I… see,” she managed, her heart beginning to race. “I…” 

And then Clara was kissing her. There was no warning or preamble; she wasn’t kissing Sephy and then she was, her lips warm and soft and chapped under her red lipstick, tasting of champagne and something sweet and cigarettes. For several long, delicious seconds, Sephy forgot who she was and where she was and who Clara was and simply kissed her back, relishing the feeling of kissing a pretty girl for the first time in what felt like forever, and then she was struck by the memory of her father, and the thought of River, and she pushed Clara away at once, feeling sickened and stricken and confused. 

“I… I’m sorry,” she stammered. “I can’t… we can’t…”

She got to her feet, guilt and self-loathing coursing through her as she took in Clara’s mortified, devastated expression.

“I’m sorry,” she said again, and bolted for the doors.


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the wake of their kiss, Sephy finds herself drawn to a tabloid article that proves highly enlightening about Clara.

_Over the hill fashion designer Clara Oswald was last night escorted from exclusive members-only club Drama on Park Lane after becoming so intoxicated and aggressive that she smashed a mirror with a chair, causing close to £4,000 worth of damage to the luxury venue. Witnesses say that the designer, 31, had earlier arrived with a friend before being left alone in the club at around midnight, at which point her behaviour deteriorated to the point of violence._

_Soap actress Jackie Tyler, who was in the VIP area with her entrepreneur husband Pete and daughter and fellow actress Rose, told this columnist that:_

_“It was bloody embarrassing, frankly. I’ve seen her in there before, making a big deal of herself, and it’s always embarrassing; the state she gets herself into! But this time she turned up with a lady friend I didn’t recognise and ordered a bottle of champers, showing off, flashing the cash about, you know, making a big deal of being able to afford expensive drinks. Honestly, people shouldn’t bring guests in if they’re going to behave like that and show off, it lowers the tone of the place and makes us all look like entitled toffs. Well, the friend must have agreed because I didn’t see what happened, but the woman she was with walked out suddenly, and Clara went out of control. She kept ordering more and more drinks, and I’m not talking little glasses, oh no – bloody big bottles of vodka, and not even_ nice _vodka, and she was trying to make us drink with her. No thank you. Then this man turned up, dodgy little bloke, looked about 16, and he must’ve been her dealer and must have given her something, because she got even more erratic after that. She was like a hyper little kid – shouting and laughing and dancing on the tables, making a right scene of things. My Rose would never have dared do that – I said to her, I said, ‘be glad you’ve never been this prone to making a stupid tart of yourself in public’ – so I tried to get Clara to calm down, but she just called me a terribly rude name and went out to the dance floor. The next time I saw her… well, she was a complete state. Looked bloody frightened, and when the bouncers tried to get her to leave, she put a chair through a mirror in the Gold Room. I hope she picks up the bill; it’s the least she could do for all the trouble she’s caused.”_

_Clubgoers in the main area of the club, where the bottle menu starts at £450 for a standard of Dom Perignon, reported that Oswald’s behaviour became increasingly erratic on the dancefloor, lunging for the DJ and making loud, demanding requests, as well as dancing carelessly. One reveller reported having her drink knocked from her hand, and a scuffle ensued, culminating in Oswald’s prudent ejection from the venue._

_There have been growing concerns in recent years from Oswald’s inner circle surrounding her behaviour and partying. An anonymous source close to the designer told us that: “Despite Clara’s repeated assertions that she’s not a party girl and that she only goes out to clubs because ‘it’s the done thing’ and it’s ‘expected of her’, she spends a lot of time out on the town, drinking heavily and using all kinds of substances. We’ve been getting really concerned that she might be becoming bored of pills and moving onto something heavier, particularly given her increasingly frail appearance in recent weeks; we’re trying to stage an intervention but she just isn’t interested in engaging with us on it. The first part of getting help is admitting that you have a problem, and Clara isn’t willing to do that.”_

_Perhaps this current tailspin was always inevitable. Oswald suffered the crushing loss of her mother as a teenager, followed by an estrangement from her father that she has always striven to downplay in interviews. The same source confirmed to us that despite Oswald’s seeming lack of emotional response to this rejection, it has affected her more deeply than she admits, noting that she has hardly spoken to her father Dave, a joiner, in the past ten years. Following her accession to the spotlight thanks to internationally acclaimed designer John Smith, who plucked her from obscurity in 2008, Oswald suffered another devastating blow when, following an acrimonious falling-out with Smith in 2012, leading to the foundation of her own brand, he passed away in 2014 after suffering a cardiac arrest. Their failure to reconcile prior to Smith’s death reportedly haunts her, and the evidence of her bereavements can be seen in the tepid, uninspired collections she has produced since, in which black and grey are recurring colours._

_“Oh yeah, the loss of John really hit her hard,” our source told us. “She was devastated when she heard he’d died; inconsolable. We really thought we might lose her in the days that followed, because she was like a wild thing; screaming and crying, blaming herself, pacing up and down. We had to watch her all the time until she seemed to accept it and process it. She’s never really recovered; he was more than a mentor to her. He was a friend. A close friend.”_

_There was a stubborn refusal on the part of both designers to disclose the cause for the sensational fracturing of their working relationship, and speculation has always pervaded that they may have been closer than mentor and mentee. Oswald has refused to be drawn on the matter in interviews, but her increasingly erratic behaviour in the years since Smith’s death seems to hint at something more. Her behaviour last night is the culmination of a three and a half year downwards spiral, one that has been surrounded by rumours of her drinking habits and drug use. In the wake of her salacious exit from Drama last night, will this be the push Oswald needs to get her act together?_

_In the absence of family members to encourage her to clean up her act, there are hopes that Oswald’s board of executives at Clara Oswald PLC may impose sanctions on her involvement in the business until she has sobered up. Concerns regarding her mental health have been rampant since Smith’s death, and in recent years, there have reportedly been meetings held to discuss the behaviour of the brand’s founder. A period of enforced leave or time in a rehabilitative facility could be on the cards, with a failure to comply resulting in the removal of Oswald from the brand in its entirety. “It would be a shame,” our source told us. “But if it’s what’s best for Clara, it’s something that will definitely be considered. We have designers who could step in and bring new ideas to the table.”_

_But would it really still be Clara Oswald, without the eponymous founder? “Oh, absolutely. It would just be a new direction for the brand, and sometimes a new direction is all that a brand needs to find its feet again.”_

Sephy felt her stomach lurch as she came to the end of the online article. She hardly knew Clara, and yet the undisguised, vitriolic glee of the columnist who had written it was evident. They were relishing in her humiliation and potential unseating as the founder and head of the brand that she had lovingly crafted from nothing; relishing in the fact that they had uncovered all these seemingly insalubrious secrets about her from a source they refused to name, with the tabloids’ usual maddening vagueness.

She knew, of course, who it was. Even having only met the man – if you could call their brief encounters ‘meetings’ – twice, she was certain that it was Danny who had spilled Clara’s secrets to the columnist; sure that it was Danny who had taken bitter, spiteful satisfaction from spreading rumours about Clara. Clara seemed to have no one else, to _trust_ no one else, and while Yvonne seemed to be the closest thing that Clara might have had to a close friend or ally, Sephy very much doubted that Yvonne would be indiscreet enough to talk to the press about Clara’s private life; not if she valued having a job.

There was nothing in the article, however, about the kiss, and for that, Sephy was grateful. Jackie Tyler – nasty, gossipy woman that she was – appeared not to have seen what occurred, and everyone else who had been in the VIP area would have been governed by the unspoken rule that what occurred within those four walls stayed within those four walls. She wondered whether Jackie and her family would be invited back to Drama, and very much doubted it given the indiscretion that Jackie had committed by speaking to a journalist; equally, given Clara’s act of vandalism and reckless behaviour, it seemed equally likely that she would find herself barred from the venue for the next several years. 

Sephy re-read the article, skimming over the most concerning of Jackie’s words, and the most alarming of the allegations made by Danny in his capacity as an ‘anonymous source’. Illegal party drugs had never much appealed to her, and people who took them were, in her eyes, idiotic risk-takers who cared so little about themselves that they chanced taking unknown substances that could contain, if the press were to be believed, absolutely anything. Party drugs were not an addiction; the takers of them were not afflicted by the same desperate, yearning need that sat heavily over heroin or crack addicts. No, these were wealthy, privileged people who chose what they put into their bodies and were ungoverned by addiction; their decisions were fuelled by their own selfishness, and Sephy loathed such people for their inability to respect themselves by choosing to take such unregulated and foolhardy substances. 

Her utter detestation had stemmed from the absolute, passionate hatred for such substances that her father had harboured, often discussing it at the dinner table and driving the message repeatedly into a much-younger Sephy and Jenny that they were not, under any circumstances, ever to touch such things. She still remembered the fury in his eyes as he discussed this model or that model who had arrived at work under the influence, barely able to walk in a straight line, and she remembered the punishments and sanctions he had dished out, until his loathing for such drugs had grown so renowned that it had become a widely-accepted fact that to venture near John Smith while high was to commit career suicide.

Sephy knew that Clara would not have picked up such habits around her father, and she felt a sudden stab of longing for his presence. He would have known what to do; he would have known who she could send Clara to, and how to address the problem. Equally, he would have been able to warn her to stay away from the seemingly-doomed designer, hell-bent as Clara was on self-destruction, and perhaps Sephy might have listened. 

As it was… did she have enough authority to challenge Clara’s behaviour? She couldn’t escape the loud and insistent part of her that suspected that Clara’s actions the previous evening had been her fault; Jackie had more or less directly confirmed so in her statement, even if that had been heavily embellished for the sake of the tabloid press and their desire to shock their readership. She had rejected Clara, who had then gone on what appeared to be a long-overdue bender, culminating in her ritualistic humiliation at the hands of the press and born witness to by those who had been in the club the previous evening.

Driven as she was by a sense of culpability, Sephy felt a strange urge to help Clara; to support her to clean up her act and lose the party-girl image that was so troubling. There had been a strident sadness to the designer the previous evening as she’d told Sephy that partying was expected of her; but there had also been her quiet confession of seconds later.

_This is when things don’t hurt quite so badly._

The words haunted Sephy, and she felt compelled, by some unseen force, to try to help; to try to stage some kind of intervention, regardless of the form it may take. It might not be her place, and she certainly might find herself fired for doing so, but if she could capitalise on Clara’s… fondness for her – her brain skipped over the word ‘crush’, dismissing it as childish – then perhaps she could make a difference. Perhaps all Clara needed was someone on her side – something that she seemingly did not have – and perhaps that person, Sephy reasoned, was herself.


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Following her spectacular exit from Drama, Clara confronts Danny and tries to make amends, in more than one sense.

Clara listened to the phone ring, feeling a dull, swooping sense of nausea in her stomach as she waited for the line to connect. She leant forward on the sofa and reached for her glass of water on the coffee table, taking a long swig of it as she listened to the line ringing and ringing and ringing and – 

“What do you want?” 

The voice that answered was vituperative, laden with spite and fury, and as she set her glass down, she was unsurprised to notice her hand was shaking in instinctive, reactive fear. 

“Nice to talk to you too, Danny,” Clara forced herself to say flatly. “How are you doing?” 

“Fuck off.” 

“Charming,” she rolled her eyes, trying not to let the malice in his tone bother her, although she felt her heartrate accelerate, the tremor in her hands spreading to her arms as she felt adrenaline begin to lance through her. “So, so charming. Were you this charming to the journalist from the _Daily Mail_?” 

“Oh, you read that, did you?” Danny’s voice changed, becoming tinged with something that was faintly akin to smugness, and the glee with which he spoke served to underline Clara’s rising sense of revulsion and fear. “She was really keen to talk to me when I said I had inside information on you. _Really_ keen. Lapped up every detail and then begged for more.” 

“How much did they pay you? Was it worth it, to throw me under the bus?” 

“I’d have done it for free,” Danny said coolly, and Clara closed her eyes, leaning back on the sofa and willing herself not to lose herself to panic or tears. She inhaled deeply through her nose, trying to force oxygen back to her brain. “But now you mention it, it was a tidy little sum. I’ll be heading off to Cannes for a month or so after Fashion Week.” 

“I thought…” Clara took another deep, steadying breath. “I thought you actually still had a shred of decency. I was wrong.” 

“And I thought you actually gave a shit about me. I was also wrong.” 

“Danny, I-” 

“I don’t want to hear it, Clara. Whatever you’re going to say, I don’t give a shit. You used me and you led me on for months. You wanted everything on your terms and I had to play by your rules, not to mention the fact that you treated me like I was just a thing to be used when you wanted a quick fuck or some fun. You made me feel like shit, and you make everyone around you feel the same, because you don’t know what love is, or friendship. You know what _hedonism_ is, and you’re stupid enough to confuse that with love, or care, or warmth. But you don’t have a clue, do you? You don’t have a clue how shit you make people feel.” 

The frankness of his tone suggested that the speech had been rehearsed, and an idle, rational part of Clara’s brain wondered how long he had been waiting to speak these words into existence. She felt a rising sense of guilt for all she had done, and she opened her eyes, feeling them burn with unshed tears but no longer caring. There was no one here to see her cry, and as long as she could keep her voice from wavering then Danny would never know how deeply he had hurt her with his words. 

“I… Danny, I…” 

“No,” he said firmly. “No, you don’t get to try and justify yourself, or make excuses. There is no excuse for how you behave.”

“Danny, I…” she sighed, deciding to make a desperate bid for an armistice. “Please. Why don’t you come over, and we can order something and talk about this?” 

“What?” he laughed harshly. “So you can get drunk, and you can get me drunk, and we can end up fucking? No chance.”

“That wasn’t what I-” 

“That was exactly what you had in mind. Don’t try to fucking kid yourself. I’m not that stupid, Clara; I know you, and I know what you want. You want a shag. A no-strings-attached shag, with no inconvenient or messy feelings. But guess what? People aren’t robots. People aren’t things you can pick up and put down whenever the hell you feel like it. And I’m not going to be your toy anymore. If you want those things, why don’t you try Sephy? She’s a pretty little thing, and I know what you’re like when you get a crush. Go after her. Give her a try.” 

“But I…”

“What? You miss me? Don’t try to pull that bollocks now,” Danny’s tone hardened, and a note of fury crept into his words. “You miss me so much, so that’s why you took her to Drama? I’m not stupid; I’ve seen the paparazzi photos of you arriving with her.” 

“Why…” Clara managed, then asked in shock: “Why didn’t you tell the journalist who she was?” 

“Because the poor bitch didn’t deserve that. What was it that happened? You took her with you but she objected to you… what? Being you? Sticking something up your nose? Trying to cop a feel? And then she left, and you went ballistic. Nice work on being banned, by the way; makes my life easier knowing I can actually go on a night out and not have to worry about bumping into you.” 

“Why are you being like this?” Clara snapped, her fear and remorse segueing to anger. “Why are you being such a bastard?”

“Why am _I?_ Says the woman who strung me on and used me? Yeah, wow, I have absolutely no idea, Clara. It’s a total fucking mystery why I’d feel bitter or angry. And do you know what? Sephy’s welcome to you. She’s fucking welcome. But don’t come crying to me when she realises what a selfish, shitty, manipulative, messed-up person you are.”

He slammed the phone down before she could reply, and Clara let out a scream of rage, throwing her phone across the room as she did so. It hit the wall and audibly cracked before dropping to the floor as she put her head in her hands and screamed again, knowing her neighbours would complain but hardly caring. Her head was pounding from the night before, and now her heart was racing and her mouth was dry and-

She bolted to the bathroom and was violently, loudly sick, coughing and heaving as she leant over the toilet. The air in here was cooler than the lounge, and as she slumped over the immaculate porcelain she pressed her hands against the cistern with gratitude, allowing the chill to seep into her skin. Taking deep, shuddering breaths, she tried to fix her mind on the previous evening. She recalled ordering champagne, and talking to Sephy, and then… then things were a blank. Had she really done what they all said she’d done? Had she really lost control and smashed a mirror in anger?

Clara looked down at her arms, noticing for the first time since she’d crawled out of bed an hour earlier that there were large, developing bruises spanning the skin there. Several were the ghostly shape of purple handprints, mottled and luridly hued, and she realised with impassivity that those were from where she was escorted forcibly from the premises the previous evening by security. Others were not so clear-cut – there were several that appeared straight and linear, but then she remembered that she had apparently lunged at the DJ; these were, she supposed, the marks from the edge of the booth she had leaned over. As her head slowly stopped spinning, she examined her hands, noting with detached interest that there were several tiny cuts littered across her fingers, and she realised that these were tiny injuries from falling glass; bite-marks from the fragments of the mirror she had smashed.

Groaning, Clara flushed the toilet and got to her feet, heading into the lounge and retrieving her phone. The screen was a mess of shattered glass but it still worked, and she typed out a text to her public relations manager before returning to the bathroom and turning on the bath taps. Adding bubble bath and fetching her glass of water, she had just stripped off her pyjamas and was on the verge of clambering herself in the hot, citrus-scented water when her phone rang, and she answered it with a groan. 

“Hello?” 

“I cannot _believe_ you got _thrown out_ of Drama for _breaking a flipping mirror!_ ”

“Hi, Donna,” Clara said in a measured voice, putting her phone onto speaker and then setting it on the nearby counter, before stepping into the bath with a contented sigh.

“What the hell are you doing?” Donna asked suspiciously, as the taps continued to gush forth scalding water. “Why are you making sloshing noises? Have you finally drunk so much alcohol that you’ve turned to liquid?” 

“I’m in the bath,” Clara said with bemusement. “Soaking away the bruises and the hangover.” 

“So you should bloody soak,” Donna said with irritation. “Can you soak for so long that you dissolve? It’d save me a lot of trouble.”

“You’re so nice to me.” 

“Yes, because you make my job _so easy_. You smashed up a nightclub, Clara! Why?! You’re not a bloody Rolling Stone! You’re not the Beatles! What the hell were you thinking?!” 

“I wasn’t thinking,” Clara rolled her eyes at the accusatory note in Donna’s voice. “Patently. How much do I owe them?”

Donna named a figure and Clara swore.

“Yeah, well,” Donna said primly. “This is what you get for being a _flipping prat_ and getting drunk and high and god knows what else.” 

“There is nothing else,” Clara noted. “Those are the only two options on a night out. The other is actually well-shagged, but that isn’t really acceptable in public.”

“You’re a bloody terror,” Donna said with stern exasperation. “An actual bloody terror. Do you know how much damage control I’ve had to do? We are _three days_ into 2018 and you’re already causing me stress. Actual stress. I’m on my third latte of the day, and it’s not even noon.”

“You drink at least three lattes a day every day,” Clara reminded her. “And at least I keep you busy. You were bored shitless at HC Clements.” 

“There were more attractive men at HC Clements. And they weren’t gay.”

“Don’t be homophobic,” Clara fired back, enjoying the banter more than she’d have cared to admit. “Not all the attractive men I associate with are gay. Danny wasn’t.” 

“I bet he bloody is now,” Donna muttered. “Wouldn’t be surprised if he changes teams in protest.” 

“Hey!” Clara said, snorting at the thought. “I’m not that bad.”

“No, you’re not, and you’re very pretty. That’s the problem,” Donna sighed heavily. “I’m doing what I can, but he’s caused a right balls-up by talking to the press. You’re going to have difficulty living this down. I know you’ve said no before, but going down south and spending some time at the Priory…” 

“I do not need to go to the Priory,” Clara said firmly. “I don’t have a problem.” 

“You got so off your face last night that you got banned from a nightclub, Clara,” Donna said bluntly. “You have a bloody problem. So I’d suggest either cleaning up your act yourself or consenting to going to the Priory, because otherwise you’re going to have a financial problem alongside the party-girl problem. Alright?” 

“Fine,” Clara muttered sourly. “Can you sort out the cheque for Drama?”

“Already have. You might be a smasher-up of clubs but at least you pay your debts on time.”

“Thanks,” Clara turned off the taps and leant back, letting out a long breath. “I’m sorry about Danny.” 

“Probably not as sorry as me. I bet the git thinks it’s funny, talking to the press.” 

“He does,” she sighed, flexing her fingers under the water and watching her cuts and bruises ripple strangely through the hazy, bubble-filled water. “I rang him just now and he more or less confessed that he thought it was all hilarious.” 

“I’d say I never understood what you saw in him, but I’d be lying,” Donna intimated. “He was a good-looking bloke. He didn’t…” 

“Didn’t what?” Clara asked, the question loaded. 

“Didn’t deserve to be strung on for so bloody long,” Donna said with characteristic honesty. “Not least because you could’ve ended it a lot sooner and then I could’ve stolen him.” 

Clara, despite herself, laughed. “You wouldn’t want him. Massive ego.”

“Massive anything else?” 

“Donna!” Clara chided, but she bit down on her lip to suppress a cackle. “You can’t ask people things like that. I couldn’t possibly comment.” 

“Well, you learnt from the best on the no-commenting front,” Donna said proudly. “I’ll leave you to your bath. You know I was meant to be at my mum’s for lunch today, but instead I’m fielding calls about your choice of champagne and what exactly you were wearing?” 

“Well, you can thank me for that later.”

“You’re bad,” Clara could hear the eye-roll in Donna’s voice. “I’ll keep at it, alright? Try not to smash anything else.”

“Other than my phone?” 

“You…”

“Sorry.” 

“Flipping heck. Look, I’ll try and sort something new out. Shiny, Apple, rose gold?”

“I love you.” 

“Shut up and enjoy your bath,” Donna instructed. “And if you fancy slipping me Danny’s number, I’m sure I could make myself available for him.” 

“I’m sure you could,” Clara shot back, then added: “I’ll think about it.”

Donna rung off without further comment, and Clara bent her knees, plunging her head under the water of the bath and revelling in the sudden, velvety silence that it brought. There was no sound other than the blood pounding in her ears, and she lay there for as long as her lungs could bear before resurfacing with reluctance. 

Donna was right. She knew that, deep down, and yet it still made this fact no less annoying. Clara knew that she needed to stop using her vices as an escape; knew that she needed to focus on her work and not allow herself to be distracted by hedonism and partying. And yet despite all her protests about how it was merely playing a role, she knew that it was a bigger problem than she wanted to admit; she knew that it was becoming a way for her to run away from her worries, and a way for her to detach from reality. When she was drunk or high and dancing, there were no negative reviews, or collections that flopped, or utter absences of creative inspiration. She was numb to it all; blissfully, wonderfully numb, and it was addictive in a way that set her teeth on edge.

Still, it could not continue. With Danny spilling her secrets to any sympathetic journalist who might bolster his bank balance, she was at risk of losing all remaining vestiges of respect and importance in the industry. She was at risk of slipping into oblivion and bankruptcy, and she was far too stubborn to allow all that she had worked for to come to nought thanks to her own stupidity. She needed a new approach to her work, and as she plunged her head below the bath water for a second time, she was struck by a sudden flash of inspiration.

A flash of inspiration that was rainbow-hued, and inspired by a reluctant model named for a Greek goddess.


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finding herself summoned back to Clara's office, Sephy imagines the worst. What she finds, however, is beyond anything she could have predicted...

A week after their disastrous night out, Sephy found herself summoned once again to Clara’s offices. Unable to quell her rising sense of anxiety over what precisely her presence was required for, she had fought her desire to cancel the meeting and instead forced herself to attend, albeit without much gusto, trudging through the miserable winter weather and arriving in the building’s lobby feeling – and looking – much like a drowned rat. As she stepped into the lift, she reminded herself time and time again that there had been no mention of her in any of the articles surrounding Clara’s breakdown in Drama, beyond her being the ‘mysterious blonde companion’, and that if there was no way that the press knew who she was or what had happened between them, then surely Clara would be forgiving. 

There had been no contact between them since the kiss, not even through the medium of Yvonne; it was not until the previous evening that the invitation to this meeting had been extended, and even then it had come via email, from a generic corporate inbox. She wondered idly, not for the first time, whether she was about to be fired, and felt a crashing sense of conflict about the prospect. On the one hand, she would be freed from a job she was already apprehensive about; on the other, given her newly-minted quest to save Clara from herself, it would be difficult to do so if she were removed from professional proximity to the designer. 

The lift doors opened and she stepped out, finding the corridor outside to be oddly deserted; devoid of Yvonne’s usual welcoming presence, it seemed all the more intimidating, and Sephy wondered for one heady, foolish minute whether she could simply return to the lift and flee the building without anyone noticing. It was an enticing prospect, and yet somehow the deathly hush that had befallen the offices was as intriguing as it was disconcerting. 

“Hello?” she called hopefully, extracting her phone from her pocket and clutching it in one hand, lest it be required in case of emergency. “Urm, anyone home? Well, anyone… office? Couldn’t really call this a home, could we?” 

There was nothing but silence, so she came to a decision and began to head towards Clara’s office, following the corridors and finding the rooms that lay to either side to be equally hushed. She didn’t dare open any doors, but the usual hum of background noise was conspicuous in its absence, and it made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. Where was the sound of ringing phones, the hum of chitchat, the clack of keyboards? Where was the low thrum of sewing machines, or the rustling of fabric? 

As she approached Clara’s office, she became aware of the low, urgent rumbling of voices. With each step she took, they grew increasingly clear, until she could catch odd words like ‘allegations’ and ‘article’, and over and over, the word ‘no’, repeated in a clear voice and becoming more insistent with each reiteration.’ Pausing outside the door, Sephy became aware that the person offering repeated, insistent denials was Clara, and instinctively, she pushed her way inside, feeling a strange sense of defensiveness on behalf of the designer.

Clara was slumped forward in her chair, her eyes red and puffy, her hair dishevelled, and her face bare of makeup. Stood at each corner of the desk, like living statues, were Yvonne and an auburn-haired woman that Sephy didn’t recognise, who was dressed in a dark trouser suit and managed to look both stern and sympathetic. 

“What’s going on?” Sephy forced herself to say, keeping her tone as light as she could manage as she slipped her phone back into her pocket. “Because it’s like the _Mary Celeste_ out there, and frankly, it’s creepy.”

“You shouldn’t-” the auburn-haired woman began, but Clara waved a hand.

“No,” she croaked. “She’s OK. She can stay. I invited her, didn’t I?” 

“Well, do you want us to… tell her?” Yvonne asked, blinking down at Clara in amazement.

“Well, she’s not psychic,” Clara muttered, reaching for a glass of what Sephy sincerely hoped was water and taking a large gulp. “Yes, you can tell her.” 

“Tell me what?” Sephy felt a sudden rush of fear. It was abundantly clear to her now that whatever she had been summoned here for had been forgotten about in the wake of some new, more pressing crisis; whatever that crisis was, it had elicited a reaction that subdued an entire floor of workers, and that was enough to turn her stomach. “What’s happened? Has someone died?” 

“Yes,” Clara said flatly, giving a bitter little laugh. “But it was three and a half years ago, and so I haven’t got anyone on my fucking side.” 

Sephy felt her stomach lurch. “I…” she managed, as she understood what Clara was alluding to. “I don’t understand.” 

“The _Daily Mail,”_ the auburn-haired woman began, her face adopting an expression that clearly indicated what she thought of the publication. “Has published a deeply hurtful article insinuating that… insinuating that…” she looked down at Clara, suddenly unsure. 

“It insinuated that Clara relied on, ah… certain favours,” Yvonne took over. “And that this was the reason that she got ahead in her career.” 

Clara let out a bitter, mirthless laugh. “Yeah, the uh, allegation of head is kind of the issue here. Great choice of words.” 

Yvonne flushed a deep shade of maroon, and Clara rolled her eyes.

“It centres around-” the auburn-haired woman began, but Clara seemed to have found some strength in herself following Yvonne’s unfortunate lexical faux-pas, and cut over the top of her. 

“They’ve published allegations that I fucked John Smith. You know – the designer. My mentor.”

Sephy felt the colour drain from her face. 

“It’s all untrue,” Clara continued. “It’s all absolutely untrue; the very suggestion… the very idea… it’s insulting, not only to me, but to his memory and his family and it’s just… it’s just bollocks. I would never… the fact they even think I would…”

To the assembled women’s considerable consternation, Clara burst into tears. 

“I would n-never have done that, _never_! They w-want to paint me as some kind of h-home-wrecker, and I wasn’t, that was n-never how it… that’s not… he was my _friend_ and my m-mentor and he c-cared about me, yes, but no more than was appropriate! They’ve dragged up all these h-horrible photos of us, you know, at e-events, and he’s g-got his arm around me and they’re making it so s-sordid and he wasn’t!” 

To Sephy’s intense disgust, Yvonne only rolled her eyes.

“I just… how c-can they d-do this? It’s d-disgusting.”

“The man’s dead and buried, Clara,” Yvonne said coolly, in what she obviously thought was a reassuring tone. “I don’t think-” 

Clara’s tears dried up almost instantly, and an expression of absolute fury overtook her face. “What, so because of that, this is OK? It’s alright to say disgusting things about him, because he’s not around to read it? It’s alright to publish this libellous bollocks, because he won’t know about it? It’s not fucking alright, Yvonne! He was important to me, even if you don’t want to or can’t believe that, and if you knew… if you understood what we meant to each other…” 

“Yeah, statements like that really don’t help the suggestion that you were fucking.”

“How dare you?!” Clara’s face contorted into a mask of loathing. “Get out of my office! Go!”

“Spare us the histrionics, Clara,” Yvonne said with a weary sigh. “Spare us this whole act, because I don’t have time for it.” 

“I said _get out_ ,” Clara snarled, and Yvonne looked startled by the malice in the designer’s tone. “ _Now_.” 

“Clara…” the woman in the suit began. “You need to-” 

“Don’t fucking tell me I need to calm down, Donna,” Clara snapped. “You can leave as well.” 

“But we need to-” 

“ _I don’t_ _care_ ,” Clara said coldly. “Get out of my office.”

Donna and Yvonne exchanged a loaded glance before silently turning away from Clara and striding from the room with haughty disbelief. Sephy hovered, uncertain of what she should do, as Clara put her head in her hands and began to cry again.

“Do you want me to…” she said quietly, but Clara shook her head emphatically. 

“They d-don’t understand,” Clara mumbled into her hands. “They th-think that because we f-fell out, I didn’t c-care about him at the e-end, and that’s not t-true. He wasn’t always a good m-man but he tr-tried to be.” 

It was discomfiting, Sephy realised, to have this crying woman in front of her who had had the same experience of her father that she had. Isolated from him in the latter part of his life, they both had regrets surrounding their lack of reconciliation, and yet Sephy knew that to confess who she was now would be inconceivable. Clara didn’t need her to be John’s daughter. She didn’t need someone who had similarly self-excommunicated herself. She didn’t need to know the truth of who she had a crush on. No; she needed a friend; someone who would listen and care in a way that Donna and Yvonne so clearly did not. They were impatient with Clara; frustrated by her seeming concern for someone that she have publicly disavowed. They wanted her to move on; they had pragmatics to think about, like counter-statements and damage control and the preservation of both Clara and the brand’s reputation. Instead, Clara was lost in a landscape of regret and remorse, and she didn’t need to think about the media or her work or anything else. She needed to be, for the moment, not a designer or a celebrity or anything else; she needed to be human. 

“Hey,” Sephy said softly. “Hey, it’s alright. Come here.” 

Crouching beside Clara, she held out her arms and noted the look of absolute surprise on the other woman’s face before she leant into the embrace with a grateful sigh. 

“‘M sorry,” Clara mumbled, clutching Sephy like a lifeline and burying her face in the taller woman’s shoulder. “It’s s-silly, but I just…” 

“It’s understandable,” Sephy said in a low, soothing voice. “He meant a lot to you and you never had the opportunity to make amends, or patch things up. That kind of feeling stays with you, and it’s hard to shake it.”

“Y-yeah,” Clara agreed. “I just w-wish I’d not been so s-stubborn.” 

“We all have regrets like that,” Sephy said, fighting to keep her tone neutral. “I think everyone has that realisation when they lose someone dear to them; that they wish they’d done this or that differently, they wish they’d made amends, they wish they’d said sorry. That’s normal, and people need to understand that and not have these expectations that just because you might not have been there or been speaking, you didn’t care. Of course you cared; it’s just sometimes life or emotions or actions get in the way, and you always think there’s going to be the opportunity to patch things up and then… suddenly there isn’t.” 

“How do you… who…” 

“My dad,” Sephy said vaguely, giving a casual little shrug. “It still gets to me, and people still want to put that blame on me, but death doesn’t discriminate. Death doesn’t care that you’ve got unfinished business, and it’s crap, and it’s heart-breaking, but that’s unfortunately how things go. I’m sorry that you have to go through this; the _Daily Fail_ really is a scummy paper.” 

“They d-don’t care,” Clara mumbled. “About anyone.” 

“No, they don’t,” Sephy said with gritted teeth, remembering the countless column inches devoted to her father and River’s divorce. “Why don’t I go and get you a cuppa, hey? I’m sure there’s a kitchen around here somewhere.” 

“Out the office, turn left,” Clara sniffed, wiping her eyes on the heel of her hand. “That would be really nice. Thank you.” 

“Milk, no sugar?” 

“Yes, how-” 

“I've seen you make it, before,” Sephy gave Clara a last squeeze before extricating herself from the embrace and heading towards the door with a reassuring smile. “And I pay attention.” 

“Oh,” Clara said in a small voice. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Oh, and Sephy?” Clara asked, as Sephy reached for the door handle. “Could you… you know, keep the wolves at bay? Yvonne and Donna?” 

“Sure.” 

Stepping out into the corridor, Sephy was relieved to see that the offenders were nowhere in sight. Following Clara’s directions, she pulled her phone from her pocket as she strode off in search of tea, typing as she went.

_Daily Mail have run an article on Dad and Clara. All bollocks. Can we get it taken down?_

River’s reply was instantaneous.

_The lawyers are already on it, darling. Those fuckers will think twice before dragging your father’s name into any more articles._

Smiling to herself, Sephy stumbled upon the kitchen by chance, reaching for the kettle and feeling some of the worry in her stomach dissipate at the thought that, at the very least, the _Daily Mail_ might actually have to apologise for something.


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After fending off Clara's over-zealous staff, Sephy bonds with Clara over their family lives... but how honest can she be?

As Sephy headed back towards the office, a scalding mug of tea in each hand, she found herself accosted by Donna and Yvonne. Both women stood before her, arms folded and a stern expression on their faces, and Sephy bit back the urge to laugh; their disapproval was so tangible that it seemed to form a physical barrier around them, and yet she resolved to ignore their overt hostility. 

“Why are you doing this?” Yvonne demanded, arching an eyebrow in an accusatory manner. 

“Doing what?” Sephy asked, forcing herself to frown innocently and hold aloft the mugs of tea with a little flourish, careful not to spill any. “This? We’re British; we make tea. It’s sort of what we do, especially when people are under pressure.” 

“No, not the tea,” Donna said with a theatrical eyeroll. “I mean, yes, the tea is part of it, but… why are you egging her on?” 

“What?!” Sephy asked with incredulity, astounded that Donna had reached this conclusion from her innocuous gesture. “What on earth do you mean, ‘egging her on’? She’s upset and I’m taking her a cuppa. How is that ‘egging her on’, and what does that even mean?”

“She gets like this,” Yvonne told her, her tone coolly impassive, as though Clara were a piece of machinery that has developed a fault. There was no warmth in her tone; no compassion. This was, in her view, a problem to be solved and nothing more. “She gets worked up over things; hysterical. Goes into histrionics and expects everyone around her to drop everything and go to her aid, like she’s some kind of damsel in distress. She winds people around her little finger, and she’ll do it with you, too. She puts on the waterworks and throws her toys out of the pram and expects us all to come running. Look at you; running to her with mugs of tea. It’s a fundamental error, Sephy. You don’t want to do this; you’re lulling her into the sense that you’re going to be her puppy-dog who will come to her when she calls. And trust me when I say this, you really don’t want that particular privilege. She’s an absolute car-crash at the best of times, and she’ll suck you into her world of drama and hysteria and god knows what else.”

“Have you considered,” Sephy shot back in the calmest voice she could muster, suddenly finding herself grateful that she was holding two hot drinks and was thus unable to gesticulate furiously. “That she’s a frightened woman who needs a friend?” 

Yvonne snorted. “Yeah, and people need to be friends with that like they need a hole in the head.” 

“Where’s your compassion?” Sephy asked quietly. “Where’s your empathy?” 

“Worn out,” Donna said in a tired, dispassionate tone. “Worn out, a very long time ago. She’s not been right ever since… well, ever since John died. She’s never told us the ins and outs of it all, and we haven’t asked, but there was obviously something there. There must have been something there, because she was in bits when he died. Shaking, screaming, sobbing. We had to have her admitted to a private facility in the end; she was so depressed, not eating, not looking after herself.” 

Sephy blinked hard; she had not been aware of that particular nugget of information, and she felt a curious rush of sympathy for Clara as she imagined her so utterly lost in her grief. 

“Well,” she forced herself to say pragmatically. “This is about John, so I’m guessing it’s stirred up a lot of memories for her, which can’t be pleasant. I’m going to go and sit with her, and if you have a problem with that, then so be it. You can take your lack of kindness and leave.”

“You…” Yvonne blinked at her in stupefaction, visibly affronted. “You can’t ask us to leave!” 

“Clara’s orders.” 

“She wouldn’t dare,” Donna said, narrowing her eyes in suspicion. “She knows we’ve got to-” 

“No, she was very emphatic,” Sephy continued. “She wants you to leave. Now. Please.” 

“Of all the fucking nerve…” Yvonne muttered, shooting Donna a loaded glance. “She’s pushing it… tell her that we’ll be back this evening, alright? And if she doesn’t like that, she can try stopping us, but it isn’t recommended.”

“What are you, the police?” 

Yvonne flashed her teeth at Sephy, then turned and started towards the lifts with Donna. 

“Fair warning,” she called over her shoulder. “Don’t let her draw you in.” 

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Sephy informed her tightly, then continued on towards the office, stepping inside and finding – to her immense relief – that Clara was exactly where she’d left her, with her head propped on her elbow as she sat at her desk with a miserable expression. 

“Wolves?” she asked with a small smile, as Sephy set the mugs down on the desk between them.

“Wolves,” Sephy admitted, turning the handle of her own mug towards her and taking a seat opposite Clara. “They, uh… they told me I should stay away from you.” 

Clara arched one eyebrow, but she didn’t seem truly surprised. “Did they, now?” 

“They did.” 

“And what reason did they give?” 

“That you’re histrionic and a drama queen and you manipulate people.” 

“They say that to everyone,” Clara smiled sadly. “Unfortunately, I have a bit of a reputation.” 

“For which of the above?” 

“Mainly the uh…” Clara reached for her mug and took a tentative sip of tea. “Histrionics. After John died… I was a mess. It sort of tarnished their view of me.” 

“But that’s what grief does to a person. It’s a natural response.”

“They didn’t need grief to do that to me. It wasn’t convenient for them; they needed a leader and a designer, not a woman who was falling apart at the seams. And something in me… I don’t know. Something in me kind of died when John did.” 

“Was he your first…” Sephy chanced, knowing she was on thin ice. “You know. Significant loss?” 

“No,” Clara sighed. “I lost my mum when I was eighteen, but that was… I don’t know. Different. I dealt with that differently, because I had to stay strong for my dad. He was in absolute bits, so I had to keep it together for his sake. I don’t think I ever really got over losing Mum because of that; I kept everything in, I didn’t talk to anyone, I didn’t really mourn. And then when John… when he… you know, it just brought back all of that, and then I’d lost him as well, and so it was this horrible double weight of the grief of Mum’s death and then for him as well.”

“That must’ve been hard,” Sephy took a sip of her tea, feeling her heart ache as she realised she had far more in common with Clara than she anticipated. “I was seven when my mum died, and just… it changes everything, doesn’t it? Your mum is supposed to be the centre of everything, your role model, all of that, and then suddenly when she’s not there… it’s awful. I felt lost.” 

“Seven?” Clara’s eyes widened. “God, that must’ve been horrible. Did your dad… did he… you know? Meet anyone else?” 

“Yep.” 

“Was she awful?” 

Sephy laughed. “No, quite the opposite. But I was determined to hate her for a good few years, so I gave her hell for a little while. She never stopped trying to win me over though, and when I realised that she didn’t want to replace my mum and she didn’t want to parent me, she just wanted to look after me, I stopped giving her grief. She’s a really great woman. She’s all I’ve got now – her and my sister. Did your dad remarry? I’m guessing the answer’s yes, given your question.” 

“Yes,” Clara grimaced. “Her name’s Linda. She worked with him for years; he used to joke with Mum that Linda from the office had a little crush on him. Mum was barely bloody cold in her grave before she smarmed her way into our lives, and he didn’t want me hanging around and ruining their domestic bliss.” 

“Why?”

“I’m a carbon copy of my mum,” Clara smiled sadly. “Linda didn’t want me giving her filthy looks over the breakfast table in the morning, making her feel like she was being judged by the spirit of my mum, so she was just… fucking unpleasant, really, until I got the hint and moved out.” 

“I’m sorry.” 

“I’m not. Dad started voting Conservative shortly afterwards. _And_ he probably voted Leave. Dickhead.” 

Sephy snorted. “There’s a damning statement if ever I heard one,” she sobered a little, and chanced the suggestion: “But he’s still your dad.” 

“And he still doesn’t want to know me. Even when I had my first collection at London Fashion Week, he wasn’t interested. I invited him, but he never replied.” 

“I’m sure he _does_ want to know you.” 

“You’re sweet, but he doesn’t, and that’s… OK.” 

“No, it’s not,” Sephy sighed. “He’s your dad, and he’s meant to make you feel loved. God knows, mine didn’t always, but I regret not making amends before it was too late.” 

“Believe me, he’s not about to bite it any time soon. Linda would skin him alive if he left her widowed… although she’d probably inherit the house and everything in it, so she might be keen. Christ, what if she poisons him?”

“Stop avoiding the subject.” 

“I’m not!” 

“You are! Why don’t you just try… talking to him?” 

“About what? I wished him a happy Christmas, and he didn’t even reply. Besides, he’s back in Blackpool. Have you been to Blackpool lately? It’s not exactly cosmopolitan.” 

“There’s donkeys on the beach, though,” Sephy reminded her with a grin. “There’s a _beach_ , end of. Not a bad prospect.” 

“It’s January.” 

“And your point being? We’re British, we’re never ones to shy away from a beach trip.”

“We are when it’s cold.” 

“Wimp,” a thought occurred to Sephy suddenly, sparked by the mention of Christmas and the inclement weather. “Can I ask you something?” 

“You just did.” 

“Don’t be facetious.” 

“The gloves.” 

Clara’s cheeks flushed maroon. 

“Did you make them for me?” 

“Maybe.” 

“How did you know my size?” 

“I’m a designer, Sephy; I can size a person just by looking at them.” 

“Why did you make them for me?” 

There was a pregnant, tense silence between them as Clara visibly struggled with her response. Surprise flashed across her face, then confusion, then embarrassment, and Sephy felt a sudden pang of guilt for having been so direct. 

“Because,” Clara said after a moment’s consideration. “You’re the first person in a long time who has treated me like a person. Like a normal, regular person; not a name or a brand or a hysterical woman or a legacy or anything else. You’re the first person to actually see past that and see me, and I wanted to thank you for it. Like I said in the note; it was to thank you for all your help so far.” 

“I didn’t do anything.”

“You pulled me out of that panic attack. You spoke to me like you weren’t afraid of me. You smiled at me.”

“That was just… being kind.” 

“People aren’t always kind to me,” Clara admitted in a tremulous voice. “So, really. Thank you.” 

Sephy blinked. “You’re welcome. But-” 

“No. Thank you. You’ve done far more than you’ll ever know.” 

“You make that sound threatening.” 

“It wasn’t supposed to,” Clara’s mouth twisted into a shy smile. “I’ve been designing.” 

“That’s sort of in your job description, isn’t it?”

Clara laughed, and the sound was music to Sephy’s ears. With Clara’s unexpected giggle, the lingering traces of the sadness that had been gathered around her like cobwebs fell away, and she seemed calmer and more optimistic. “It is, but this isn’t… it’s not like what I’ve been designing for the past few years.” 

“In what sense?”

“There’s more colour, for a start.”

“You’ve done colour before.”

“Not like this. Not contrasting and conflicting and overlapping and… look, let me show you,” Clara opened a drawer in her desk and extracted an iPad, unlocking it and flicking through screens before handing it to Sephy. Onscreen was a dress blocked out in bold hues of mustard and teal and burgundy, and it took Sephy a moment to place the familiar tones. 

“It’s my…” she looked up at Clara in astonishment. “That’s my t-shirt colours.” 

“Yes,” Clara said brightly. “You brought colour to my life, see? In more ways than one.” 

Sephy locked eyes with her, and something passed between them, unspoken and significant, before she felt her cheeks colour and dropped her gaze to the iPad again, flicking forwards and finding herself on an image of a long, sweeping coat, currently devoid of colour. 

“Hey!” Clara chastised, leaning forward and tugging the iPad out of her hands. “No looking at that yet. It’s supposed to be a surprise.” 

“I’m sure I can muster some surprise when it’s done,” Sephy assured her. “Don’t you worry.” 

“You’d better,” Clara mumbled. “Because I’m designing it for you.”


	18. Chapter 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clara confronts some of her old demons.

Despite her best efforts to ignore Sephy’s words on the topic of making amends, Clara couldn’t help but brood on the issue of her father. It had been almost ten years since she had last seen him, and she had walked away from him on the banks of the Thames after he had loudly proclaimed his disapproval of her career choice, reaffirmed his continued loyalty to Linda, and announced that he was suspicious of her relationship with John. Each blow had been painful enough, but with the final, condemnatory statement that he was sure that she and John were engaged in some kind of extramarital liaison, she had lost her temper, screamed at him that she never wanted to see him again, and strode off into the night. What had followed had been total radio silence, and although she tried to pretend it didn’t hurt, it cut her like a knife each time she thought of him, ensconced in their family home in Blackpool with a woman who couldn’t hold a candle to her mum. 

She hadn’t expected him to remain celibate after the loss of her mother; far from it, and indeed in her mother’s last days, Clara recalled her making her dad promise that he wouldn’t spend the rest of his life lost in mourning. But to move on so fast, and so completely; to take down the photos of her mother and allow his new partner to treat Clara with such overt contempt? That was unforgiveable. He had wanted her out of the way so that he could move on with the woman he had so often claimed to loathe, and she had tried to oblige his wishes for the sake of his happiness. There were the occasional dutiful messages she might send him – at Christmas, on his birthday, and on Father’s Day – but otherwise she maintained a respectful distance from him, refusing to infringe upon his blissful second marriage. It wasn’t as though he ever replied to her, but in making the effort, she assuaged her conscience and tried to make peace with the shattered remnants of their relationship. 

She had felt the yearning urge to reconcile with him before, and she had always fought to ignore it. He hadn’t wanted her getting in the way, and nor had Linda. He didn’t approve of what she did and wasn’t interested in it; he had done his dutiful eighteen years of parenting and then those ties had been severed for good once she had moved out. He didn’t want to know her; that had always been her excuse for not trying. But now, having seen Sephy so calmly say that she had lost both her own parents, and without having made amends with her father? That played on her mind, and Clara found herself obsessed with the notion. What if her own dad did pass away before they could apologise to each other, or try to patch things up to some degree? What if he died and she’d never told him that she loved him, despite his faults? The guilt that weighed her down following John’s death would be infinitely multiplied if she allowed her father to slip away in the same manner, and it was this reasoning that led to her boarding a train to Blackpool the next morning, an overnight bag clutched optimistically in one hand and enormous sunglasses safely in place to hide her from any curious stares. The last thing she needed was to be recognised or questioned; she didn’t have the patience or the energy to be polite to any journalists or hangers-on she might encounter.

She passed the journey with her head in a crisp new copy of a detective novel that she’d picked up at the station for the sake of something to do, most of the subtleties of the plot escaping her, but the words and the characters occupying enough of her brain to prevent her anxiety from manifesting too cripplingly. The three hours slipped by, the view outside the window changed from built-up cityscapes to rolling fields, and then the familiar contours of the hills of Lancashire came into view. As the train approached Blackpool North, there was the faint tang of the sea in the processed air that filtered into the carriage, and as Clara stowed her book in her bag, she gazed out of the window, catching snatched glimpses of the beach as the train rolled into the station.

Stepping onto the platform, Clara was struck with a sensation that took her breath away; one of nostalgia and yearning and hope and familiarity, yet there was an undercurrent of crushing _otherness_ that she couldn’t put her finger on. It was strange to be here and realise that while she had changed, the places she had so loved had changed too, rendering her a confused almost-stranger in a place she had once called home. As she exited the station and looked around at the tatty signage and empty shop fronts of the surrounding street, she resisted the urge to run to the beach and wade into the water up to her ankles – Sephy had been right; regardless of the winter weather, the sea called to her – and instead focus her attention towards the taxi rank on her left. Approaching the front of the line of blue-painted vehicles, she climbed into one on numb legs, stammering out the address and then making the bare minimum of polite small talk as they sped towards the tiny house that she both longed for and yet dreaded seeing.

After being deposited on the pavement outside, and having tipped the driver generously, Clara forced herself to take a deep breath as she surveyed the terraced house with a mounting sense of trepidation, lifting her sunglasses and setting them atop her head so that she could better survey the place. The once-neat front garden with its square of lawn looked sad, muddy, and unkempt, and the front door had been painted an unwelcoming shade of yellow that had turned grubby in the sea air. She supposed it wasn’t too late to leave; her stomach lurched uncomfortably as she took half a step backwards, trying to resist the urge to bolt.

Before she could do so, the front door swung open, and there he was. Her dad stood in the doorway, looking so much smaller than she remembered him being, and blinking at her with abject shock. The two Oswalds stood there for a moment in silent stillness, and then he said in disbelief: “Clara? Is that really you?” 

“Dad,” she said, her voice cracking on the single syllable, and she pushed open the front gate and stumbled up the path on feet that felt as though they had turned to lead. She ground to a halt halfway to the door, suddenly feeling a wave of apprehension crash over her as she realised that he may be less than pleased to see her. “Yeah, it’s…” she forced her voice to remain even as she swayed slightly on the spot. “It’s me.” 

“What are you doing here?” he asked, frowning slightly as he took in the bag slung over one shoulder, and then looked down at her feet where they had stopped, his expression intensifying. 

“Just… was in the area,” she lied unconvincingly, giving a false, high little laugh. “Thought I’d come back and see the sea.”

“Isn’t there any sea down south?” he asked, then added in an almost-accusatory tone: “And I don’t mean ‘here’ as in Blackpool, I mean _here_. On the front path. What do you want?” 

“To…” Clara swallowed thickly. There was no point in lying. “To see you.” 

“Why?” 

“Because…” she felt her eyes beginning to burn treacherously. “Because I miss you.” 

“But you’ve not…” he blinked hard, the coldness slipping from his eyes. “I thought you… you’ve not said a bloody word to me in ten years, Clara, I thought…” 

“I…” Clara’s eyes widened in shock. “Dad, that’s not… I’ve… I’ve texted, I sent you a message on Christmas Day. I’ve tried… I’ve…” 

“I haven’t had any message,” he scowled once again. “Not a bloody word for ten years.” 

“Dad, I…” Clara began to cry, silent, hot tears of desperation. She had anticipated his anger, yes, but not this strange indifference. She hadn’t expected an embrace or an apology, but she’d expected some degree or display of compassion. “Dad, I’m sorry, I wanted… I just… god, I was stupid enough to think that coming up here might fix things, but I was wrong. I’ll just… I’ll go. I’m sorry for bothering you and Linda.” 

Something in his expression changed. 

“Right,” he said heavily. “I think you’d best come in.”

* * *

Only once Clara was safely installed on the sofa and her dad had scuttled off to the kitchen in search of a hot drink did she begin to look around herself with muted, careful interest. The walls she had last seen covered in ornamental plates with lurid floral patterns were now largely bare, and the framed photographs that Linda had so loathed were back in their pride of place on the wall above the TV. Linda had insisted on taking them down, reasoning that Clara was probably embarrassed by having her childhood played out in gilt frames for everyone to see, but now they had been re-hung, and appeared to have been recently dusted. Getting to her feet, Clara edged closer, holding her breath lest her father come back and lambast her from moving from her approved place on the sofa. 

There was her as a baby, and then a toddler; the bright yellow polo shirt of her primary school clashing horribly with her dark hair in several photographs, and then came the deep blue of her secondary school uniform, and a range of terrible hair and makeup looks that made her cringe to reminisce on. The photos that surprised her were the four closest to the middle of the display: there was a large print of her, her mother and father taken one Christmas at Butlins; her graduation photo; a professional photograph of her that she recognised as being taken from her first interview in _Marie Claire_ , and then at the centre of it all, her parents’ wedding photo. 

“Ah,” her dad said from behind her, and she let out a yelp of shock, springing backwards as though she’d been caught doing something terrible. “Admiring my photos, are you?” 

“How did you get that photo from Marie Claire?” Clara asked, her tone more accusatory than she had intended. “And why?”

“What, you think I didn’t keep up with your career?” he asked, chuckling as he set his tray down on the coffee table. He seemed bolstered by her presence in the lounge, and he looked almost jolly now as he looked from her to the photos with a wistful, nostalgic expression that was tinged with something that seemed almost like pride. “Besides, you sent your grandma two copies by mistake. She thought I’d like one.” 

“Ah,” Clara looked down at the faded red carpet, then blurted: “Why is your and mum’s wedding photo up? Doesn’t Linda mind?”

“Linda doesn’t mind much now,” her dad said with a hint of bemusement. “Considering she left me almost eight years ago.” 

“She…” the air left the room, and Clara felt a chill creep over her. “She what?” 

“She said she couldn’t cope with me moping over you and your mother for the rest of our lives, so she packed her bags and left in the middle of the night, like some kind of criminal. Bloody good riddance, really, she was a real piece of work.” 

Clara resisted the urge to say ‘I told you so.’ 

“But…” she stammered, unable to process what she was hearing. “But… you… why haven’t I heard from you?” 

“I kept texting and calling, but you never replied, and I never heard from you.” 

“I never heard from _you_ ,” Clara shot back, confusion settling over her. “Not a word, so I just… I thought you’d washed your hands of me.” 

“Clara, I…” he frowned. “I’m telling you, I’ve never heard anything from you. If I had…” 

His eyes grew damp, and Clara reached over and placed her hand on his reassuringly, her heart soaring when he turned his palm over and laced his fingers through hers in a gesture that she remembered from childhood. A sneaking suspicion was beginning to creep over her, accompanied by a hot rush of guilt. Could she be right? Even her stepmother surely couldn’t have been so cold; if she made the accusation and it was unfounded, even if her father was no longer married to Linda, it was a cruel allegation to lay at someone’s feet.

“Where’s your phone?” she asked softly, needing to check; needing to know. 

“I… what?”

“Where’s your phone?” 

“Why?” 

“Because I’ve got a hunch, and I really, really hope that it’s wrong.” 

She watched as her dad patted through his pockets and eventually produced an innocuous-looking cheap smartphone, which he handed over with a weak little flourish. As Clara opened the messaging app, she felt a lump rise in her throat as she clicked into a conversation labelled with her name and read the contact information.

“This…” she managed, looking down at the unfamiliar digits. “This isn’t my number, Dad. The number you’ve been texting… it’s not mine.” 

She looked down at the messages he’d been sending her, almost daily. Short messages. Small talk about current events, and chit-chat about TV and the weather. Silly things; the things they had once talked about when their relationship was less complicated. Each message was unanswered; each stacked on top of each other, one after the other, for further than she cared to scroll. She felt a sudden, acute sense of loss for the decade they had spent locked in a battle of wills. 

“But…” her dad frowned. “I don’t…” 

Taking out her own phone with a shaking hand, she called her father’s number, and watched as the handset failed to ring. Disconnecting the call, she felt a rush of anger and relief that she had been right, before setting the two phones down atop the coffee table and clenching her hands into fists. 

“I can’t call you, which means my number is blocked,” she said quietly. “Someone blocked my number from reaching your phone, and they changed my number in yours to an incorrect one. I think we both know who.” 

“Clara…” her dad looked up at her with eyes that were wide and wet with tears. “Clara, I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry, I should’ve tried harder, I should’ve written, I should’ve come down and…” 

“Dad,” she said thickly, getting to her feet and pulling him into an awkward hug. “Dad, shh. It doesn’t matter now. None of that matters now. What matters is we’re both here.” 

As she clung to her father in a way that she hadn’t done since she was a small child, crying softly into his shoulder, for the first time in a long time, she felt some of the weight lift from her chest.


	19. Chapter 19

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Returning to the family home, Sephy discusses the Clara situation, and is asked some uncomfortable questions...

“So,” Sephy asked, finishing chopping the last of the veritable mountain of potatoes that River had thrust at her half an hour previously and tipping them into a saucepan of salted water on the stove. “What did the lawyers say about… you know. The article of shite?” 

She chanced a look over at River, who was rolling pastry out on the adjacent worktop with an impressively large rolling pin, and watched as her stepmother’s face broke into a deep scowl. 

“Fuckers. They said there’s nothing they can do, because… well, because he’s dead. Apparently once you’re dead, you no longer have a reputation in the eyes of the law, so you can’t commit libel against the dead. Which seems highly bullshitty to me, but there you go.” 

“Oh,” Sephy blinked hard as she processed this information, and chancing an attempt at humour to lighten the situation: “Does this mean people can say anything they want about, like, dictators and nobody can complain?”

“I suppose,” River said flatly, sighing and setting her rolling pin down. “Although realistically, people do that anyway. I can understand the logic of it in those instances, because otherwise historians would be being sued left, right and centre for publishing accounts of the Holocaust or the gulags, with people claiming defamation all over the shop, but this? This is a private individual-” 

“Private-ish.” 

River’s scowl intensified, and she rolled her eyes. “Yes, alright, private-ish, but it’s not like he committed murder or anything else that would suitably, you know, warrant this kind of shit being said about him. He was a good man – regardless of what you might think of him – and he doesn’t deserve this.” 

“I know he was a good man,” Sephy said quietly, stung by the accusation, and she turned away and stuck her hands under the hot tap, rinsing away the starch and soil that had embedded itself under her nails. “He made mistakes, yes, but that doesn’t negate that he was a good man. He loved you, and he loved Jenny.” 

“And he loved you,” River noted sadly. “I know you might not think it, but he did.”

“He had a funny way of showing it.” 

“You reminded him of Elizabeth,” River sighed, and Sephy turned back to her, watching as her stepmother tucked a strand of hair behind her ear with one pastry-encrusted finger. “You know how hard he found that.” 

“Yeah,” Sephy swallowed, pulling herself up to perch atop the kitchen counter and ignoring River’s disapproving look. “Did you know Clara’s mum died when she was young as well?”

“I believe I heard mention of it, yes,” River said in a flat, neutral tone, looking back down at her pastry and poking it with a fingertip. “She was older than you were, wasn’t she?” 

“Eighteen, yeah. I don’t think it went well for her with her dad. You know, after.”

“That seems to be a recurring theme, doesn’t it? It’s almost like mums are the ones holding everything together.” 

“I mean, you’re holding this family together,” Sephy noted, leaning over and poking River’s hip with the toe of her slipper. “You’re the _glue_ , if we’re going to talk in hideous clichés.”

“If you keep talking like that, I won’t let you eat any of this pie, and I will throw flour at you.”

“You’re the _glue_ that keeps this family from _fracturing hideously at the seams_. You’re a really _dependable, reliable homebody_ …” a handful of flour hit her in the face, and she sneezed. “Hey!” 

“I did warn you. Now get off my worktop before I smack the back of your legs with my rolling pin.” 

“Might be difficult as I’m _sat_ on the back of my legs.”

“The fact I did not murder you as a child never ceases to amaze me. You’re meant to grow out of back-chatting me as an adult, not grow more into it.”

“I was never one for convention,” Sephy noted, jumping down from the worktop nonetheless and peeking into the saucepan on the stove in which stewed apple was bubbling sluggishly. “That smells good.”

“It’s at a temperature that’s approaching hot lava, so I strongly caution sticking your finger in it.”

“Would I do that?” 

“Yes.” 

“Don’t be difficult.” 

“Hey, you asked the question,” River noted, and another handful of flour hit Sephy in the face. 

“Stop doing that!” she complained, lunging for the bag at River’s side as Jenny entered the kitchen. She was garbed in luminous Lycra, and her face was glowing with sweat, and as Sephy wiped flour off her face, she couldn’t help but roll her eyes at her sister’s garb. 

“Mum, why are you throwing things at Sephy?” she asked, and Sephy forced herself to look put upon, dropping her hand to her side. 

“Because she’s being a facetious pain in the arse.” 

“Again?” 

“Still,” River grinned. “Hope you’re hungry.” 

“Starving. Just did 10K in... Jenny squinted at the Fitbit attached to her wrist. “Fifty-six minutes and thirty-two seconds.” 

“Very nice,” Sephy deadpanned. “Is there also a measurement for how sweaty you currently are? Can we input that somewhere?” 

“How sweaty she currently is can be recorded as ‘you’re not sitting at my dinner table like that,’” River informed her daughters. “Go and have a shower.” 

“But I wanted to wipe sweat on Sephy for being gobby.”

“God, it’s like having two under-fives,” River groaned, burying her face in her floury hands with theatrical flair. “Jenny, go and shower. Sephy, stop winding up your sister.” 

“But it’s fun.” 

“You’re supposed to be the older sibling, remember? Wise, mature, sensible?” 

“Wise, my arse,” Jenny muttered, arching an eyebrow at her sister. “Who’s the one who signed up as a model?” 

“Who just ran 10K in the freezing cold?” 

“ _Shower_!” River reiterated sternly, and Jenny shot Sephy a wicked grin before slipping away upstairs. Once she was out of the room, River chuckled, and Sephy rolled her eyes again, less subtly this time. 

“How’s her, urm, fitness kick going?” 

“If I have to hang any more Lycra around the house to dry, I’m going to go mad.” 

“Why can’t _she_ hang it out?” 

“You have met your sister, right? She’d forget her own head if it wasn’t screwed on. She’d definitely forget to do her washing if I didn’t remind her. Remember that time when she was fifteen and she went through her entire wardrobe before noticing that she’d run out of clothes?” 

Sephy shuddered at the memory, and the enormous quantities of laundry that had followed; a nearly-endless procession of washing and hanging out to dry and ironing and folding. 

“It’s just Jenny,” River noted, reaching for a knife and cutting a large circle out of the pastry she had been so fastidiously rolling. “You know what she’s like, and we love her for it.” 

“Sometimes.” 

“Don’t,” her stepmother said at once, turning to face Sephy with a hard expression. “Don’t even joke about that. She might annoy you, she might not be perfect, but she’s your family, and you’re hers, and nothing can negate that.” 

“I… sorry,” Sephy blinked, disconcerted by River’s sudden seriousness. “Of course I love her all the time. Even when she’s sweaty and fitness-y.” 

“Good. Don’t you ever forget it.” 

There was a long silence as River placed the circle of pastry into a pie dish, shaping it expertly and then placing baking parchment and beans into it, before sliding the dish into the oven. 

“I’m sorry,” Sephy said again, once River had straightened up and checked on the stewed apple. “I am.” 

“I know it’s hard for you to see his name dragged through the mud like that,” River reached for a jar of cinnamon and sprinkled it into the apple, before giving it a stir with a wooden spoon. “I know it’s hard for you to see him talked about in such a way, because he’s your father, and even though things weren’t perfect, he was still your dad. But you have to remember that I loved him too, and he loved me, and it was in a completely different way. So to see all this speculation, all this rumour; it makes me feel… lost. It makes me question everything; did it really happen like that? Was everything an act? Was he really cheating? What was real, what wasn’t?” 

“But he… he left you.” 

“That doesn’t mean it hurts any less,” River admitted tremulously, keeping her eyes fixed on the stove, but Sephy could see the tears that sparkled there. “That doesn’t negate the fact I loved him with all my heart, and I still do.” 

“I know.” 

“One day, you’ll love someone that much, and I pray they won’t break your heart in the same way.” 

There was a brief, sombre silence, and then Sephy reached over and took River’s hand, giving it a gentle pat. “What needs doing?” 

“The table needs setting,” her stepmother said, discreetly wiping her eyes on the back of her hand. “And you could put out drinks for everyone. Water, and wine if anyone wants it.” 

“Right,” Sephy said gently, heading for the cutlery drawer and thinking out loud as she went: “You might… I thought… Clara’s lawyers are dealing with the article. In case, you know, you were worried. They can claim damage to her reputation.” 

“Oh,” River’s voice suddenly sounded terribly small. “Good.” 

“So the _Daily Fail_ might have to apologise.” 

“Bloody good riddance.” 

“Exactly,” Sephy grinned, before getting on with the task assigned to her. Once she’d laid the table, filled water glasses, and returned to the kitchen empty-handed, Jenny had emerged from the shower, and she was towelling her hair off as she stood in the centre of the room, looking hopefully towards the stove. 

“I know what you want, and you’re not getting it,” River chastised. “You can either get a carrot out the fridge or you can wait until those are done. You’re not nicking it raw out of the saucepan.” 

“But I’m hungry,” Jenny whined. “And carrot is a highly nutritious snack. It’s _good for me_.”

“God give me strength,” River muttered. “Sephy, occupy your sister.” 

“Wow, it’s like being a teenager again. Is she too big for a playpen?” Sephy shot back, and Jenny thwacked her lightly on the arm. “Ow!”

“So help me, if you don’t get out the kitchen, I will go fully _Hansel and Gretel_ on you and stick you both in the oven.” 

“I dunno, Mum,” Jenny wrinkled her nose. “She’s all lanky, she’d be dead stringy.” 

“And she’s all muscly, she’d be really chewy,” Sephy added, and River groaned. 

_“Out_ ,” she repeated with exasperation, flapping her hands at them before reaching for a tea towel and flicking it in their general direction. “Go on! Shoo!” 

The two sisters tumbled from the room, giggling as they went, and as they arranged themselves at opposite ends of the sofa, their legs entwined and their feet occasionally nudging at each other’s playfully, they let out contented sighs. 

“You know,” Sephy mused. “Sending River on that cookery course was definitely a really excellent life choice.” 

“I know,” Jenny concurred. “I’m thinking of going, Mum said the instructor was _gorgeous_.” 

“Oh?” Sephy asked, deciding not to point out that her sister’s culinary skills were largely limited to carbonising anything she attempted to cook.

“Not your type.” 

“In what sense?” 

“He’s a he.” 

“Ah,” Sephy grimaced. “Yeah, you’re welcome to him. Thought you were being all health conscious, though? Abs of steel, and all that?” 

“Yeah, well,” Jenny grinned mischievously. “Advantages of all that running: I can eat more food.” 

“I don’t think that’s how it works.” 

“Oh, like you’d know,” Jenny raised her eyebrows. “When did you last exercise? The late 90s?” 

“I have far better things to be doing than running around the area in which I live while wearing Lycrca. If I wanted to move speedily around, I’d get a micro-scooter. If I wanted to wear skin-tight fabric… oh wait, I don’t.” 

“God, you’re lame. Also, what better things? Pouting on a runway?” 

“Art?” 

“Are you still calling it that?” 

“Hey!” Sephy feigned great indignance. “Yes, I am. Bitch.” 

“You haven’t _done_ anything for weeks.” 

“Well, my muse has been… elsewhere.” 

“Has your muse gone on holiday to Bali or some shit?” Jenny looked at her snidely. “Or is she just a bit busy designing monochrome weirdness in her offices?” 

“Oh, my god,” Sephy felt her cheeks burn at the jibe. “Clara’s not… she’s not…” 

“Wow, you’ve gone really red,” Jenny cackled. “Almost like I’ve hit a nerve.” 

“I meant my _hypothetical_ muse, my inspiration, my-” 

“Clara.” 

“Yes, my muse is Clara,” Sephy deadpanned. “That’s why I haven’t done any work since I met her.” 

“Maybe you’re too struck by your own gayness to function.” 

“Have I mentioned recently that I hate you?” 

“Not for a good few hours, no. Why don’t you go home and do some art, then?” 

“You know full well that that isn’t how it works. It’s a _process._ ” 

“Well, why can’t this be how it works? Go home. Get out your paints. It doesn’t have to be perfect, does it?” Jenny said with surprising sincerity. “Art, by definition, isn’t always perfect. Just go home and… create stuff. Mess about. Throw paint at a canvas; I don’t know. Just… it’s what you do, and it’s what makes you happy.” 

“You’re…”

“Yes?” 

“I don’t like it when you’re nice. It’s disconcerting.”


	20. Chapter 20

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Back in her studio for the first time in weeks, Sephy finds that art begins to imitate life.

By the time Sephy returned home that evening, it was almost midnight. She was pleasantly full of food and had been lulled into a state of half-sleep by the warmth and familiarity of spending time with her family, and it was a struggle to stay awake on the bus journey home, the rocking motions of the bus only adding to her stupor-like state. Stifling a yawn as she crossed the threshold of her home, she shrugged off her coat and hung it over the newel post at the end of the stairs, then wandered from the hall into the kitchen, flicking on lights as she went in a bid to banish the dark and the cold of the January night. The central heating thrummed quietly around her, making the house seem almost alive, and she switched on the kettle before moving further into the depths of her home, heading towards the large room at the back of the property that she had so neglected over the past few chaotic weeks. 

As she crossed the threshold of her studio, she felt the temperature drop, and swore under her breath as she realised it was stone cold, heading for the radiator on the far wall and adjusting the dial on one side before placing her palm on the metal, feeling it grow abruptly warm as a rush of hot water from the boiler and the heat from her hand intermingled. Turning away and listening to the soft sounds of the pipes gurgling and groaning into life, she switched on the overhead light, looking around and feeling the odd sensation of being a stranger in a place that ought to be familiar.

The custom-built studio was spacious, with a high ceiling and shuttered windows that overlooked the garden. One wall was dominated by a mural depicting an alien landscape; there were rolling hills of deep red grass, capped with snow, and a sky of burnt orange. In the distance stood a city enclosed in a mighty glass dome, and overhead, twin suns cast light over the scene, making everything it touched shine like a forest on fire. It had been the rough version of a piece for one of her most recent collections, but Sephy was starting to grow weary of the strangeness of the view. She was in the habit of periodically whitewashing the wall and starting again – usually to her sister or stepmother’s agonised consternation – although this time, she had to admit that she was stumped as to what would replace the sunset-hued scene. There was something oddly familiar and yet equally alien about the vista, and she was fond of it – it had survived for the longest period of any of her murals, and she half-wondered idly about making it permanent, confounded as she was for ideas about its possible replacement.

Paintings were propped in a haphazard manner against an adjacent wall, although she always purported to visitors that she knew exactly where each was, and that there was a rough system to her seeming lack of organisation. She couldn’t have explained it, but if bid to find something specific she could lay her hands on it within seconds; the room had become, by extension, a part of her, and she was acutely aware of each area and every item contained within.

Sephy looked up at the sound of raindrops splattering onto the skylights overhead, and not for the first time, she rued living in London. She had lived and worked in Yorkshire for a time, and while that studio had lacked the space and comfort of this, its skylight had been a window to the stars. Here in the city, she found herself constrained by light pollution, and so she looked up at the rectangles of inky blank on the ceiling and tried to imagine that she could see the familiar constellations of which her parents had taught her the names when she was very small. She reeled off the Greek words in her head as she gazed up at the blackness of the night, and an idea struck her; looking over at the mural, she tried to conceptualise how it would look as a galaxy of swirling supernovae and planets, and crossing the room to her supplies shelves, she scrawled _galaxy? stars?_ onto the open page of a sketchbook with a stick of charcoal.

From the kitchen, she heard the kettle click, and she wandered back towards the sound in a kind of trance, her mind already racing on the subject and how she could make a space-themed mural work, and how long it would take her to paint. Would she have the time to work on it? Would she have the energy? Would she have the inspiration? She had told Jenny the truth; she was finding it difficult to sustain her muse lately, and she was unsure whether this had anything to do with Clara.

Sighing, she reached for a cream-coloured mug and set it down on the counter, leaving swirls of grey across the porcelain from the lingering particles of charcoal on her fingers. Reaching for a tub of hot chocolate, she spooned some into the mug and then added hot water, before padding back into the studio and taking a seat in her favourite chair, blowing on the hot drink and reaching for a sketchpad with her free hand. Since her discovery by the over-zealous talent scout in Oxford Street, she hadn’t had the desire to create. She couldn’t express it in words; it was as though in being launched so suddenly into her father’s world, she had lost the ability to imagine and develop in her own; the jarring shock of suddenly being surrounded by something she had so concertedly disavowed was an almost-tangible shock to the system, and she felt a sudden rush of anger, as though it had stunted her creatively.

Her father had never shown much interest in her art. It had been a mere hobby of hers during her teenage years, something that she had to fit around the rest of her life, in which she had studied diligently and done everything she could to curry favour in her father’s eyes – achieved good exam results, played on sports teams, appeared in school plays in bit-parts. She’d worked and worked and then applied to study psychology at university, but her attention had been otherwise captured by the wider world, and she’d headed off travelling before her studies began, and somehow she’d never quite found her way back to academia. Her father’s anger and disappointment had been considerably tempered by River, but when she returned home some years later, sunburnt, homesick, and with aspirations of becoming an artist, he had been furious. It didn’t matter how often her stepmother noted that he had entered the creative profession himself; it didn’t matter how passionately Sephy argued that this was her own vocation; he didn’t want to listen. He’d begrudgingly congratulated her when she’d won a place on a Fine Art course at a trendy, emerging university in London, and occasionally offered a grunt or two of feedback when she showed him a piece, but it had been River who’d encouraged her; River who’d given her money for new materials when her student loan wouldn’t quite stretch to it; River who’d attended her shows.

“Give him time,” River had said, time and time again. “Give him time, Sephy.” 

She’d given him time; invited him to her graduation, which he’d attended only at River’s significant coercion, and it was only when her tutor had sung her praises to her family that he’d at last sparked a small degree of interest, as though an academic’s view was more significant than that of his family, and he deigned to cast a weathered eye over her final project. He’d admitted gruffly that it showed promise; made several commitments to take her to art exhibitions, none of which he’d ever fulfilled; and then shortly after, he stumbled upon Clara, and his interest in Sephy’s art waned significantly. River had spent the time following their estrangement assuring Sephy that he took an interest in her, but she had never sincerely believed it; now, she wished she’d fought harder to make him pay attention to what she did, and wondered frequently whether he had seen this piece or that mural; wondered if he’d ever discussed her work with River, or whether her stepmother’s words were all designed to alleviate some of the pain of their enforced separation. 

With the hindsight of age, she understood his motives. He’d wanted her to have a steady career, the antithesis of his own unstable trajectory; he’d wanted her to have concrete achievements that she could put on paper and would be recognised universally; he’d wanted her to have a conventional, stable income that wasn’t dependent on critics or the whim of the press. He’d seen the creative life and lived it for so long that he knew the ins and outs of it, and it frightened him; he hadn’t wanted that life for her, and yet she had chosen it. His disinterest was not due to a lack of care, but because he cared so intensely that he had hoped that by curating a lack of interest, perhaps she might change her mind. Instead, it had only driven her to be all the more stubborn in an outcome that he should have foreseen; they were so alike and yet so different, and she wondered what he would say if he were here now.

Although she was loathe to admit it, she missed him. He had striven for a better life for them, and he had striven to achieve what he had long dreamed of. It was unusual enough for a man to enter the realm of fashion, and more unusual still for him to be a family man with a wife and children. Her father had never reacted to people’s assumptions or beliefs about him with anger or judgement, and she recalled the firm but polite way he deflected questions surrounding his personal life, making it into a small and inconsequential matter until people stopped asking. 

She remembered his funeral, and how her legs had threatened to give way from under her as she stood at River’s side, staring at the coffin of a man she had one day hoped to make amends with. She’d been dimly aware of Clara’s presence in the church, and she’d fought the urge to confront her; fought the urge to ask her why exactly her father had been so bewitched by this strange woman he’d brought under his wing. Now, she understood; having seen the powerful, near-magnetic influence Clara had on people, she could comprehend why her father had been so in thrall to her, even if that had never been Clara’s intention. 

Sephy sighed heavily, allowing the memories of her father to overwhelm her, and she set her hot chocolate down, instead reaching for the stick of charcoal she had used minutes before to scribble her idea for a new mural. Allowing herself to work from memory, she began to sketch a familiar face shape, adding features as she went, smudging as necessary, until she was gazing down at a rough reproduction of her dad, a smile on his face and his eyes warm, with a sparkle there that she remembered from happier times. She kept going, adding details and shading, until she was vaguely happy, then reached for her mug of lukewarm hot chocolate as her phone pinged. 

Extracting it from her pocket with difficulty, keen to avoid leaving grey fingerprints on her clothes, she looked down at a message from Jenny. 

_Did you make any art? xxx_

She smiled to herself as she tapped out a reply and sent it back, looking down at her work and adding a touch more shading to the hair as she awaited a response, which came almost at once.

_What did you doooooo? Show me._

There was a long string of emojis following the message, and Sephy squinted at them in bemusement, trying to guess at their meaning. 

_It’s not finished yet,_ she typed. _And besides, it’s… well, it’s of Dad._

The response came at once, and consisted of a single symbol. Sephy looked down at the blue heart onscreen, and then looked to her work, and mumbled aloud: 

“We miss you, Dad.”


	21. Chapter 21

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sephy confronts Clara about her drinking, and things take an unexpected turn...

Familiarity breeds contempt, or so the saying went, and Sephy considered the words as she leant back on the sofa in Clara’s office, affixing the designer with a wary stare. Clara was sat at her desk with a glass of wine in one hand, her iPad propped in front of her and the rest of the wine bottle within easy reach. It was barely dark outside and yet most of the bottle was already gone, with Clara sipping steadily as she sketched with a stylus, occasionally pausing to change the colour or thickness of her lines, or to gaze seemingly randomly into space. Sephy didn’t bother to ask what she was working on; she knew that Clara would only refuse to tell her, and then if pressed, would become giggly and coy in a way that was singularly irritating, and so instead she waited, knowing that she would be shown when the designer was good and ready. Something about this situation irked her, but she was unwilling to think too intently as to why, and she instead tried to settle her mind; to acknowledge the feeling and retreat into hazy, bored disinterest.

She watched as Clara finished her glass and reached for the bottle, emptying it into the glass with a flourish. A single droplet of red liquid splashed onto Clara’s desk as she did so, and she set the bottle down and flicked up the offending spill with a fingertip, sucking it clean without looking away from the screen. Sephy thought about sighing theatrically or yawning or in some way drawing Clara’s attention, but she worried what she might say if she found herself at the centre of the designer’s focus, and so she instead remained silent, casting her gaze out of the window and looking at the rain as it whipped against the glass. 

It had been an unusually wet January thus far, and so she had been limited in her activities; invigorated by her idea for a new mural in her studio, she had visited the Science Museum and London Planetarium, feeling like a giant among the hordes of tiny schoolchildren, and taken copious notes and photographs. She’d browsed Google and art shops and noted down hues and paints and brushes, and she had made rough sketches numbering in their hundreds, trying out this detail or that detail and experimenting with colour. When she wasn’t working on the piece, she found herself looking at old family photographs, inexplicably drawn to her father’s face, and so she set to work capturing it almost without conscious thought, combining the sources she had with memories she held dear, allowing light and movement to seep into her work and render the depictions she drew almost eerily lifelike. Some of them she showed to her sister, but she swore Jenny to secrecy; River would only find it strange or morbid that she was so fixated on this, Sephy convinced herself, and so she worked on the project in relative peace, sometimes emerging from her studio to find that the city had grown dark while she drew.

When she wasn’t working on her own projects, she found herself at the whim of Clara, who called her several times a day either just to chat about trivial, inconsequential nothings or to summon her to the office to do the same, or sometimes to work. They had spent two weeks in and out of each other’s company, with Sephy more often than not in the very office she now found herself in, watching as Clara designed or pinned mock-ups to dress forms, or trying on strange garments still in their prototype stages. Some of them were the monochrome Sephy was used to seeing in Clara’s collections, but some were garishly coloured in the same vein as what Clara had shown her on the day that the torrid article was published, and Sephy found wearing those pieces strange; they were a reminder of the allegations made against Clara, and a reminder that Clara had taken inspiration from her directly. To wear something that had so obviously been inspired by herself was both flattering and unsettling, and Clara had a way of looking at her as she wore them that made her feel shivery; there was admiration in her gaze, and respect, but something else that Sephy suspected may be lust, although it made her feel strange to think of it. 

She knew Clara wanted her – that had been made staggeringly apparent on their disastrous night out at Drama, but then, Clara’s desire had seemed like an almost abstract concept; something that was detached and harmless and not related to them in the real world. The lavish, opulent nightclub was not the sort of place that Sephy felt at home in, so she play pretend; she could put it to the back of her mind and act as though nothing had changed. But now, confronted with Clara on a near-daily basis, it was harder to ignore. Growing up as she had, Sephy had never been shy or reticent about changing in front of others or hiding herself, and yet when she felt Clara’s eyes roving over her skin as she changed outfits, she began to feel the first stirrings of self-consciousness she had experienced since adolescence. 

Perhaps all the more shocking was the fact that on some occasions, in the depths of the night or in idle moments while Clara was working, Sephy had to admit to herself that it was nice to be wanted. It had been a long time since she had found herself as an object of desire; a long time since she had been looked at in the way that Clara had. And despite all the strangeness and secrecy that lay between them, and the constant, omnipresent spectre of her father that Sephy sometimes managed to overlook, she couldn’t deny that Clara was beautiful. In moments such as those, the thought of being wanted by someone so ephemerally pretty was intoxicating, and Sephy wondered how it would feel to hold Clara’s hand; to run her hands through Clara’s hair; to kiss her again. 

But it would be wrong; it would be so beyond the realm of the wrong to want Clara, and so Sephy pushed the thoughts down inside of her, dismissing them as foolish daydreams, and tried to pretend that everything about this was normal. Tried to pretend she didn’t notice how Clara looked at her, and tried to pretend that she didn’t wonder what it would be like to kiss Clara again. As they spent increasing amounts time together, she allowed herself merely to watch Clara, and she told herself that was enough. 

One day, as they had been sat in the office and seamstresses were circling Sephy with pins, adjusting the garment she was wearing with military precision, Clara had asked unexpectedly: 

“You’re an artist, aren’t you?” 

“Um,” Sephy had managed, disconcerted by the question. “Yes, I am.” 

“Would…” Clara had come to stand in front of her, her expression oddly shy. This, in itself, was unusual; Clara was the epitome of oozing confidence; except, for some reason, where Sephy was concerned. It was then that she became clumsy and awkward; then that she would giggle like a teenager. Sephy, for the most part, tried not to read into such behaviour. “Would you draw me?” 

And for some reason, Sephy had agreed; in some pique of madness or in the wake of Clara’s lingering looks, she’d agreed. The portrait was in the studio at home now; not a drawing this time but a painting, but still very much a work in progress. There was something about it that she couldn’t get quite right, and so she had put Clara off each time questions were asked about the piece; told her it wasn’t quite perfect yet, and thankfully, her excuses were met with understanding. There was something that was far more challenging about Clara than there was about her father; Sephy had decades of experience of him and very little of Clara, and yet still she tried, and still she couldn’t quite put her finger on what it was about the portrait that was wrong. She sat at home and stared at it almost every evening, or sometimes turned it to the wall so that she could sketch this memory or that or her father, and yet she could feel it haunting her, nagging at her conscience and jostling for attention in the forefront of her mind. 

As she looked over at Clara again, she felt it niggling at her for the tenth time that day, and she watched as Clara downed her glass of wine in one long gulp. _Yes_ , she thought to herself; _familiarity does breed contempt, and in this case, the contempt is laser-specific._

“You drink too much,” she told Clara bluntly, spitting the words out before her courage could fail her. “You drink too much, and too often.” 

“I’m sorry?” Clara looked up, droplets of red wine clinging to her lower lip like blood. “What did you say?” 

“I said, you drink too much,” Sephy repeated calmly, meeting Clara’s gaze and refusing to look away, even as the blood pounded in her ears and she felt the usual heady rush of adrenaline she experienced when she stood on the verge of conflict. “And too often.” 

“I…” Clara scowled, wiping her lips with the back of her hand and setting her iPad down. “How dare you?” 

“I’ve watched you drink on almost every occasion I’ve been here since that article about you and John was published,” Sephy said in a measured voice. “And on almost every occasion, it’s not been the odd glass or a small drink; it’s been like today. It’s been most of a bottle.” 

“And that’s your business… why?” Clara’s expression hardened further. “Don’t forget, I’m your employer.” 

“Are you?” Sephy arched an eyebrow. “Because my understanding was that you wanted me to be your pal, so as your pal, let me tell you, you drink too much.” 

“That’s none of your fucking business.” 

“It’s my business when it means you’re walking around London in the dark, drunk.” 

“Why?” 

“Because you could be mugged or stabbed or rape or murdered! Because you could be sex trafficked, or assaulted, or worse! God, you might have the advantage of being a frequent drinker, but you’re still not in a position to defend yourself!”

“Try me,” Clara’s eyes sparkled, her dark mood suddenly dissipating as quickly as it had overtaken her, and she got to her feet, rising onto the balls of her feet like a boxer, balling her hands into loose fists and holding them in front of her face in a defensive stance. “Come on, try me.” 

“I’m not going to hit you,” Sephy said wearily, confused by the sudden change of mood. “I’m really, really not.” 

“You’re not going to get near enough to hit me. Come on. I can look after myself. I can prove it. Come on. What are you, scared?” 

“What the hell are you trying to prove?” Sephy asked, raising her eyebrows as she looked the petite designer up and down, equal parts annoyed and astounded. “Hm?” 

“That I’m not the victim you think I am.”

“I don’t think you’re a victim. I think you’re vulnerable.” 

“Same difference. Come on. Try it. Come on,” Clara’s voice became needling and whiny. “Come on, don’t be a wimp.” 

“God…” Sephy sighed, standing up and approaching the desk. “You are really, really annoying, have I mentioned that?” 

“Little more deference for your employer, please.” 

“Am I your employee?” Sephy asked, scowling. “Or am I your friend, because you seem really confused about the matter, and it’s kind of giving me whiplash.”

“You’re a…” Clara hesitated, bouncing a little from one foot to the other and apparently weighing up the question with a considerable amount of seriousness. “Friend, who I also pay to do work for me. I think.” 

“Good,” Sephy exhaled, feeling a strange sense of ebullience bubble through her at the confirmation. “Glad we’ve cleared that up.”

Nodding sagely, she reluctantly but rapidly jabbed one hand, open-palmed, towards Clara without warning, half wary of catching the designer off-guard and hurting her, but she needn’t have worried; Clara parried the blow at a speed that seemed unreasonable for a woman who had just drunk a bottle of wine. 

“Want to try again?” Clara asked, and there was a hint of gloating to her tone, so Sephy lunged with more purpose this time, aiming for a spot just to the right of Clara’s left ear. Again, Clara dodged, avoiding the blow with practiced ease, and she smirked as Sephy struck out again and again, each careful attack falling short of its mark.

Panting, Sephy eventually fell still, frowning at Clara as she did so.

“How…”

“I did taekwondo for a few years. Still do, on and off. I wasn’t, you know, exceptional, but I was pretty good.” 

“But you’re _drunk_.” 

“You forget I’ve had practice.” 

“This is very-” Sephy lunged for a final time but Clara only laughed, wrapping her hands around Sephy’s wrists and holding them tightly as Sephy groaned. “-unfair.” 

“So,” Clara’s eyes sparkled. “What now?” 

Sephy thought for a moment, and then lunged for a final time. 

Her lips met Clara’s, and everything else ceased to matter.


	22. Chapter 22

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Something about this seems oddly familiar, and Clara tries to figure out why...

The kiss was electrifying. Clara couldn’t focus on anything else; the world beyond the two of them ceased to exist in that instant, and all that mattered was the formerly-shy woman who had lunged towards her with a mischievous expression and caught her off-guard in the most surprising of ways. Clara knew she had been teasing her in a manner that could – or so she had certainly hoped – be construed as flirting, but she hadn’t expected her tactics to be so instantaneously successful, nor so pleasant in their outcome. Wine made her bolder; wine made her less inhibited; but even so, she would never have been confident enough to do this without Sephy taking the lead. There was something oddly intimidating about Sephy, and something oddly intoxicating about ceding control at last.

Or would she have been confident enough to do this? Clara felt a dim stirring in the back of her mind – another time, another place, but the same lips and the same feelings of pure ecstasy lancing through her. Had they kissed before? Was this not the first time they had found themselves in such intensely close proximity, or was she misremembering? 

With tremendous effort, she dragged herself back to the present, placing one hand on Sephy’s cheek and smiling into the embrace. She felt the other woman freeze without warning and then pull away, and she cursed inwardly, wondering whether she had done something wrong or crossed some kind of unspoken barrier; wondering whether a kiss could be seen as impersonal but a hand on the face was something more, something that was too intimate for them to share. She rued allowing her mind to wander during the kiss, and she bit down on her lower lip shyly as she retracted her hand as though she’d been burned, half-wondering if Sephy would kiss her again, or whether this was a moment of madness that would be instantly regretted. 

“Did I…” Clara began uncertainly, feeling her cheeks flush as she dropped back into her seat and folded her hands in her lap, willing them to stop trembling. “Did I do something wrong?” 

She felt a hot rush of awkwardness and shame that she didn’t fully understand; she hadn’t initiated anything, unless her inept flirting counted as provocation. Was this wrong? Was it wrong to desire this beautiful, enigmatic woman? 

“No,” Sephy mumbled, letting her hair fall over her face. “I just… sorry, I don’t… I shouldn’t have…” 

“No, it was…” Clara struggled to find the right adjective, the wine slowing her brain. “Nice. Good. Unexpected, but really… you know. Nice.” She groaned, putting her head in her hands, loathing herself for her lexical inadequacy. “There’s better words and I know there’s better words but I can’t… I’m not sure… it was great, alright, please don’t take my godawful choice of descriptives as criticism, because it was honestly pretty mind-blowing, and I just… I’m too tired and I’ve had too much wine to brain.” 

Sephy laughed a shy, self-conscious laugh, peeking out from between curtains of hair. “Thanks, I think.” 

“What brought that on?” 

“You’re…” Sephy paused, finally meeting her gaze, and Clara was surprised to see her own nerves were mirrored in Sephy’s expression. “Very… singular.” 

Clara looked up at her with confusion. “I’m very what?”

“Singular,” Sephy waved her hand vaguely, apparently similarly struck by lexical difficulties. “You’re not… you know, to quote that great cliché, you’re not like other girls. Women. You’re not like other women.” 

“Thank you. I think.” 

“I just…” Sephy rubbed the back of her neck, her cheeks tinged faintly pink. “God, I shouldn’t have done that. You’re my employer, and my friend, and I just… god, I’m sorry.” 

“Why?” 

“I’ve made everything weird.” 

“How does kissing me make everything weird?” 

“Because now you probably think that I fancy you and that’s the only reason why I’m sticking around.” 

“ _Do_ you fancy me?” Clara asked, arching one eyebrow delicately, and watching Sephy squirm in response.

After several long seconds which seemed to be filled with some kind of internal struggle that played over her features as legibly as an open book, Sephy admitted: “Yes, I do.” 

“So, why do you look so tortured about that?”

“It’s… complicated.” 

“In what sense?” 

“It just is,” Sephy’s tone was growing increasingly hostile with each question, and Clara knew she could chance only one further enquiry.

“You’re not… I don’t know, married, or anything, are you?” she asked, deliberately adopting a humorous tone and overexaggerated expression in a bid to lighten the landing of such an intensely personal question. 

“No!” Sephy said at once, shaking her head vehemently, and Clara felt a rush of relief. “No, no, nothing like that. It’s just… complicated. I don’t want to talk about it.” 

“Can we talk about the fact that I feel like I’ve kissed you before?” Clara said casually, and she watched a look of horror flash across Sephy’s face and knew that she was right; this wasn’t the first time. 

“No, you haven’t,” Sephy said in a high, unnatural voice that was wholly unconvincing. “You haven’t; I must just… oh, I don’t know, maybe I’ve got some of those lips.” 

“‘Some of those lips’?” Clara repeated in an incredulous tone, sketching quote marks in the air with her fingers as she spoke. “Meaning?” 

“Generic. Nice to kiss. Lots of people have-” 

“You’re being evasive. Why are you being evasive?” 

“I’m not being evasive. Me? Evasive? I don’t know what you mean. Why would you think that? I’m not evasive. Avoiding things? Very much unlike me. Highly rude to make such an accusation. Totally out of order. I’ve never avoided-” 

“Sephy,” Clara said patiently, her tone brooking no argument. “Stop wittering and tell the truth.” 

“You kissed me in the Gold Room at Drama,” Sephy blurted, and Clara felt a rush of hazy remembrance. “And then I walked out and you apparently trashed the place.” 

“I…” Clara closed her eyes and shook her head hard, as though doing so might trigger memories of the night in question. “I… kissed you?” 

“You did.” 

“Why did you walk out?” 

“Because I barely knew you, and… I was scared. I thought it might ruin everything.” 

“Did you want to kiss me then?” 

“Yes and no.” 

“Why yes and no?” Clara asked, keeping her eyes closed and her head in her hands, wishing desperately that she could remember the night in question. “I need… I need you to explain, I don’t understand, and I don’t… I can’t… I don’t remember.” 

“I wanted to kiss you because you’re beautiful and you’re intriguing and you’re… mainly just distractingly attractive, but also you were drunk, and you were upset, and you’d just broken up with Danny, and just… it was a lot. I didn’t want you to regret it.” 

“So, you walked out and left me?” Clara opened her eyes, but kept her gaze fixed on her desk, refusing to look at Sephy as she said coldly: “You left me alone and confused and drunk?” 

“I didn’t…” Sephy sighed in exasperation, shaking her head as she did so. “Don’t get like this. Don’t get angry and lash out.” 

“Why not?” 

“Because…” Sephy’s hands looped around Clara’s wrists, tugging her hands away from her face and pulling gently upwards, encouraging her face to follow a similar path. Clara looked up at her for half a second with the utmost reluctance before turning her face away, only for Sephy’s fingers to settle under her chin and turn her head back towards her. “Because I care, and you need to stop pushing away people who care.” 

“Why?” Clara mumbled, trying and failing to extricate herself from Sephy’s gentle grasp, knowing she was behaving like a petulant child but hardly caring. “They all leave in the end.” 

“Well, they will if you get pissed and push them away, yeah,” Sephy perched on the edge of Clara’s desk, her expression stern but kind. “Maybe you should… stop doing that.” 

“Which part?” 

“Both parts.” 

“I’ll think about it.”

“Well, can you give it some serious thought? Because I don’t like seeing you suffer.” 

“What do you care?” Clara muttered, loathing how childish she sounded. 

“I care, Clara,” Sephy said firmly. “More than you know. God knows why, because you can be a moody pain in the arse and you drink too much – sorry not sorry, boss, or should that be mate? – but I care about your whiny, wine-y arse.” 

“Did you just…” Clara blinked at her, discomfited by the pun. “Wine-y?” 

Sephy let out a yelp of laughter, the serious mood broken. “God, sorry, I couldn’t-” 

Clara kissed her, pulling Sephy towards her and down onto her lap as she did so. The other woman let out a soft sound of half-complaint and then allowed herself to be embraced, smiling into the kiss as Clara’s hands settled on the small of her back. By the time they broke apart, Sephy was still beaming, and Clara rested her forehead against Sephy’s with a shy smile, grateful that this kiss hadn’t ended with such a confusing reaction. 

“So, what happens now?” she asked softly, both yearning for and dreading the answer. “Where does this go from here? Is there even a ‘this’?” 

“I think…” Sephy sighed, reaching up and twisting a strand of Clara’s hair between her fingers. “I think maybe we stay friends, we just… kiss sometimes.” 

There was a question weighing on Clara’s mind, heavy and intrusive, and yet she couldn’t bring herself to ask it – it seemed crude, or as though she had some kind of expectation, and she didn’t want to appear presumptuous or demanding. 

“And…” Sephy said, her cheeks colouring as she continued: “Maybe sometimes other things, but not… not just yet. I’m not that kind of girl.” 

“Did you just read my mind?” 

“No, I read your pupils dilating,” Sephy poked her tongue out. “And also, I’m not stupid.” 

“What kind of girl are you, then?” Clara teased. “Because sitting on laps and looking sweet basically makes you a sort of… human-cat, does it not?” 

“Do you kiss cats?” 

“Yes, but generally on their little fuzzy heads.” 

“Good, thanks for clearing that up.” 

“And not usually, you know… with tongue.” 

“Could be very furry, so that’s a good choice,” Sephy smiled shyly as she asked: “Do you really think I’m sweet?”

“I mean, that’s one of a whole multitude of adjectives I could use, but yes, very.”

“Is that why you’re designing all these clothes for me?”

“It could be, yes.”

“Stop being enigmatic and interesting.”

“Yes,” Clara breathed, hiding her face against Sephy’s neck and planting a quick kiss on the smooth skin there. “Yes, it is.” 

“Good,” Sephy murmured, tilting her head to the side and exposing the smooth expanse of her throat to Clara’s lips. “I was wondering about that.” 

“But it’s also because…” Clara kissed her neck again, and noticed with gratification the soft sound of pleasure that Sephy made in response. “You’re beautiful, and just as enigmatic and interesting as you think I’m being, and unique, and just… god, you capture my interest.” 

“That’s going on the-” Sephy let out another sound of contentment as Clara kissed her neck again, more languidly this time. “Wall of great, sexy compliments.” 

“What else do you want me to say?” Clara murmured, trailing kisses from Sephy’s shoulder to her jaw and smirking at how the other woman’s whole body shivered at each moment of contact. “You capture my interest and you turn me on.” 

“You are..” Sephy put a finger on Clara’s lips, stilling her in her quest. “Making it very hard for me to not be that sort of girl.”

Clara twisted away from Sephy’s touch. “What if I want you to be _that_ sort of girl?” 

“Then you’re going to have to be patient, because I don’t really go in for desk sex.” 

“Who said anything about a desk? I have a flat. I have a bed. A large, comfortable bed…” 

“You know what you don’t have?” Sephy asked, biting down on her lip seductively. 

“Mm?” 

“Any patience,” Sephy laughed and twisted out of her arms, getting to her feet and retreating to the sofa she had previously been occupying with such lithe, distracting grace. “And you’re going to need some, because I’m going to make you work for what you want, Clara.” 

“That’s unnecessarily cruel.” 

“Mm, it’s wonderful leverage though.” 

“So, what are you… levering?”

“Two weeks sober.” 

“I’m sorry?” 

“Two weeks sober. That’s the price of taking me to bed.” 

“You have a price now?” Clara tried to laugh, but her mouth felt dry and she felt a rush of panic. “Goodness.” 

“How much do you want me, Clara?” Sephy asked, raising her head defiantly. “Because if it’s that much… then that’s what it’ll take.” 

“I’ll…” Clara hesitated for half a second. “I’ll try, alright? You’d best behave yourself in the meantime.” 

Sephy smiled angelically. “I’ll try.”


	23. Chapter 23

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As the enormity of what they've done hits her, Sephy tries to rationalise the Clara Situation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy new year and happy Doctor Who Day to all my wonderful readers!

Sephy arrived home later that evening, each step weighed down by a tangible sense of guilt and self-loathing that seemed only to intensify with each step she took away from Clara. As she crossed the threshold of the front door, she cast off her coat and bag before crumpling onto the sofa as her knees gave way, beginning to sob into her palms as the enormity of what she had done crashed over her. She had vowed, hadn’t she? She had vowed that Clara was off limits in a romantic sense, particularly given all that had happened in the past between her and her father; all that Sephy could not and would not tell her. There was the matter of her identity and the obfuscation involved in keeping it from Clara, and there was the fact that she would surely, inevitably, be wrongly seen as having some kind of ulterior motive in the entire affair. 

If the truth ever came to light, there was little doubt in Sephy’s mind that Clara would accuse her of being driven by spite or vengeance. There would be misinterpretations and further self-loathing, this time on Clara’s part, and then a crashing sense of shame, and regardless of what may or may not have occurred between Clara and her father, Sephy knew that the memory of him would taint all of their interactions irredeemably, potentially pushing Clara over the edge for a final time. She was so emotionally fragile that Sephy wondered whether becoming entangled with her was a safe, compassionate idea, but she was – in equal measure – so addictively alluring that it was hard to give her up. She could _try_ , she supposed, but doing so would merely take Clara to the edge again, and so she found herself trapped between two dangerous ideas: continue to romantically liaise with her, and risk the truth coming to light; or break it off now. Both would drive Clara into a dark place from which she might not return, and so all that Sephy could think of was that continuing to see her would be the kinder thing to do. At least if the truth ever were to come to light, damage control could be attempted; removing herself from Clara’s life entirely would involve leaving her with no one on her side in London, and the thought of doing so seemed boundlessly, unnecessarily cruel. 

What was it about Clara that was so… intoxicating? Sephy allowed herself to slip sideways on the sofa until she was approximately horizontal, and then removed her hands from her face, staring up at the ceiling in quiet contemplation.

There was, primarily, the superficial fact that she was beautiful. She was the epitome of an English rose, with delicate alabaster skin and perfect lips; dark eyes that seemed to express her every emotion, and which were framed with long, dark lashes and perfectly arched brows; and masses of chestnut hair that cascaded around her shoulders in a thick, shimmering waterfall. Sephy could stare at her for hours as she worked, studying Clara’s expressions as she considered her craft; entirely un-self-conscious as she lost herself in what she loved. There were a thousand shades and tones and colours of expression that she cycled through in a single hour, and Sephy loved to watch her, her eyes slipping from Clara’s face to her hands, watching the way that they spun a stylus, or worked pins. 

But it was not only that Clara was lovely to look at. She was funny in a way that was entirely, gleefully irreverent; cracking jokes that sometimes would have fallen flat with anyone more grounded in the mundane or the dull than Sephy. Some days it was hard to work as joke after joke landed between them, and the sound of Clara’s laughter was a music all of its own. Sephy had discovered very quickly that while Clara loved to make others laugh, she also loved to be made to laugh, and so she had made it a personal mission to do so. To be the cause of such a wonderful, rich sound was heady, a rush all of its own, and it became Sephy’s secret joy. 

Then there was, of course, then the fact that Clara was ferociously intelligent. Despite the media’s determined insistence on portraying her as a vacuous, self-absorbed airhead, Sephy had found Clara to be strongly academically inclined, with a particular appetite for literature and history; her knowledge in the field of Regency and Victorian novels was unparalleled, and Sephy often secretly thought to herself that Clara would have made a wonderful teacher, despite her irreverence. They would hold fierce debates about this novel or that poem; they would discuss the day’s newspaper headlines; they would groan over Brexit together late into the evening as they worked. It was not what Sephy had anticipated on entering the world of fashion, and yet it was a pleasant surprise to find someone with whom she could match wits each day, even as she was measured for this piece or that, or slipped in and out of outfits as rapidly as she could manage.

Once she felt comfortable to do so, they had even discussed Sephy’s work. She had been touched to find that Clara had a genuine affection for and interest in the art world, and there had been plans made about visits to galleries; discussions and reviews of various exhibitions, and the extolling of the virtues of various artists. Sephy had a particular fondness for Van Gogh; while Clara favoured Degas for the subtlety of his study of the female form in his works on ballet dancers, and Monet for his command of colour. Sephy had shyly shown some of her pieces – exempting, of course, her recent works of her father – and Clara had seemed genuinely enraptured by them, commenting on the use of colour or shade or light with a well-informed manner. Now, Sephy supposed, she would be likely to come to the house; particularly given the promise she had made Clara, and so she began to shape half-formed plans of where to hide the pieces, lest Clara stumble upon them by mistake. She could simply chance it and attempt to lie about their origins, but she did not possess the last of Clara’s great attributes, and so she would have to take practical steps to avoid such a situation. 

Clara was unavoidably, disarmingly charming. When she wanted or needed to be, she could win over even the hardest of hearts, drawing them in with easy smiles and polite words until people were suitably at ease and malleable to her will. Sephy had watched her do it with her own staff when they were required to work late; the guise and reputation of the terrifying boss falling away as she soothed their worries and irritations with calm, measured words and promises of overtime, until the staff seemed almost eager to do as they were bid. It was disconcerting to witness it happening and know that the ability had, to an extent, been used on her too, but Sephy found herself unbothered by this fact. It was, by now, merely an empirical truth; Clara could simply be charming, and those who experienced the full force of her covert assault on their willpower would simply bow to her desires. If Sephy had been once such person, then the charm had worked on her, yes; worked on her to draw her in, but now that she was in, now that she was involved with Clara – in every sense – the charm had ceased to be relevant.

Sephy couldn’t have helped how she felt, she realised; couldn’t have avoided falling so head over heels for someone when there were so many reasons to do so, and particularly when one of those reasons was such a powerful ability to win people over. Still, she felt a lingering, underlying pang of guilt at her actions that evening, and wondered for the thousandth time since leaving the offices with promises of returning the following day who was going to come out of this worse off. She cursed herself for having offered Clara such a silly, physical reward in exchange for two weeks of sobriety; cursed herself for offering herself up like a piece of meat; cursed herself for the accidental insinuations that this entire thing was a carefully set-up bribe, because she knew Clara and she knew how her mind worked. There was every possibility that the designer was now sat at home feeling confused and used; wondering if it was all some kind of tactic to get her sober, and Sephy knew that eventually, the question was going to come up. 

While Sephy yearned to spend time with Clara in a state of sobriety, unhindered by wine or spirits or anything more potent, she had never intended to make their physical relationship – if one could call it that at such a delicate, early stage – appear as bribery or bartering. She wanted Clara’s sobriety, yes, but it was not the only reason she had succumbed to desire and attraction that evening and allowed things to develop as they had; it was not the sole motivation for giving in to her body’s demands on her. Her sole motivation was, she supposed, far more primal than that, and yet she tried magnanimously to ignore her own desire, her mind still racing as guilt and remorse flooded her system.

But then; why should she feel guilty? She hadn’t asked for any of this; hadn’t asked to be drawn into a world she had so stridently disavowed following her father’s estrangement from her. She certainly hadn’t expected the person doing the drawing-in to be the woman who had so utterly captivated her father’s attention many years before; nor had she expected to find herself equally enchanted by Clara. It was one ill-fated event after another; as they fell like dominoes, she found herself in thrall to Clara and unable to extricate herself from the whole affair even if she had wanted to. She’d never asked for this, no, but now she was in the thick of it, she was unable to ask for the way out; unable and unwilling to find or create an exit for herself. 

She was in too deep for that – she cared about Clara, cared about Clara’s brand, and cared about the collection that was nearing completion. As the clock ticked relentlessly down towards Fashion Week, she knew that giving herself an out would only devastate all else involved; and besides, it would be spectacularly selfish to flee from the woman who was designing a range of clothes inspired by her. Sephy wanted to see them; to wear them; even to receive acclaim for wearing them, selfish though that was. Acclaim was never something she had shied away from before, and yet the thought of being acclaimed now was not in order that it might stroke her own ego, but because she knew it would stroke Clara’s. 

Her head spun with it all; with confusion and guilt and remorse and longing and lust and self-loathing. She could feel her grasp on reality slipping away, so she buried her face in her hands once again, closing her eyes and rubbing them until stars popped across the inside of her eyelids. She needed to talk to someone about this all; someone who would offer advice and reason without judgement, and yet her options were sorely limited. The small circle of friends she had established in London were all ignorant to her true identity, and yet her sister or River would be instantaneously furious with her, raining hell on her for even entertaining the notion of embarking on any kind of relationship with Clara Oswald. The professional relationship had been trial enough for them; knowing that something physical was occurring might be too much. 

Sephy groaned aloud, mentally running through her contacts list, before an idea dawned on her and brought with it sudden clarity.

She knew who she needed to call, and she rolled off the sofa at once, heading for the cordless phone in the corner of the room with a renewed sense of purpose.


	24. Chapter 24

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sephy seeks guidance from an old friend.

Yasmin Khan did not, at first glance, appear to be the sort of woman who would be keen to pursue a career in the police force. While not as diminutive as Clara, she was still not tall enough to be feasibly considered tall or intimidating, and her slight build contributed further to her general lack of what Sephy privately called ‘threateningness.’ Combined with her penchant for second-hand jackets in varying degrees of poor taste, Yasmin – or Yaz, as she was to her friends – looked more like a rather kooky student than she did a police officer. And yet a police officer she was; one with an exceptionally high arrest rate, which was perhaps due to her sheer refusal to allow anyone to evade her, and a near-pathological appetite to prove herself, which more often than not caused her to sprint down alleyways, scale walls, and rugby-tackle much larger suspects to the ground in the name of refusing to live up to her relatively harmless appearance.

She had first met Sephy during their awkward teenage years, and the two women had formed a reasonably strong bond that had been strengthened by the sheer virtue of both being somewhat weird, somewhat socially awkward, and both being holders of what their secondary school deemed ‘laughable career goals.’ It was in the face of this adversity that they had resolutely stuck out Shelley High School together, before going their separate ways at the age of eighteen and pursuing, in Yaz’s case, her ‘laughable’ career goals, and in Sephy’s, round-the-world travel. They had kept in sporadic but fond touch ever since, interspersed with the occasional wild reunion, and Sephy knew that if there was one thing she could count on, it would be for Yaz to be absolutely, unflinchingly honest with her. 

It was in the hope of receiving some of Yaz’s brutally honest advice that Sephy had made the phone call to her old friend the previous evening, and at mid-morning there was a sharp knock at the door which signalled the arrival of – so Sephy hoped – a large dose of much-needed reality. She padded down the hall and flung the door open, affixing Yaz with a stern look as she did so. 

“You knock on doors like a police officer,” she said with faux-seriousness, adopting a look of exaggerated guilt. “Terribly off-putting, not to mention very unsubtle. I had ample time to hide all my undesirable items.” 

“Sephy Lautrec, I’m arresting you on suspicion of being an absolutely diabolical liar,” Yaz deadpanned, folding her arms across her chest. “Because I know for a fact that the most undesirable thing in that house is probably your dirty laundry. If you were to make me a cup of tea, I reckon I could let you off with a warning, though.” 

“I’m reasonably sure that’s not how the police caution goes,” Sephy said, but she beamed, pulling her old friend into a hug. “Hi, you.” 

“Hello yourself,” Yaz returned the hug, the luridly-coloured faux fur of her jacket damp with rain, but Sephy couldn’t bring herself to complain. “How are you?” 

“Let’s do this inside,” Sephy suggested, and they moved off the front porch and into the hall, where Yaz shed her jacket and her biker-style boots before following Sephy into the kitchen obediently. “Kettle’s just boiled.”

“Cracking.” 

Sephy made two mugs of tea in comfortable silence, knowing that Yaz was looking around with interest at the various pictures and postcards covering the walls. River had long-ago entered into the habit of sending her the most garish, tasteless postcards she could find from her travels abroad to uphold the John Smith brand, and Sephy had stuck them haphazardly over her kitchen cabinets alongside the detritus of her own life and her own jaunts overseas: ticket stubs, travel maps, and tacky tourist tat. Yaz’s attention was thoroughly captured by a particularly hideous postcard of a nude woman that River had found at a Picasso exhibition in Barcelona, and Sephy handed her a mug of tea as she continued to examine in, screwing up her eyes as she did so in the hope that it might make slightly more sense through half-closed lids.

“What was Picasso on?” Yaz asked, finally giving up on the picture and looking over at Sephy instead. “Was it the good shit or the bad shit? Because I’m favouring the latter; and also, I don’t _get_ it.” 

“Nobody gets Cubism except Cubists,” Sephy noted, heaping sugar into her mug. “Never really my thing. I know it was artistically valuable and of its time and all of that, but I just… no. Give me Realism or Impressionism any day.” 

“Don’t go all art student on me.”

“I’m not! That was as un-art-student as I could manage!”

“Sure.” 

“Do you like my hideous postcards, anyway?” 

“They’re very nice. River is keeping her end of that bargain up nicely; have you found her any particularly awful aprons recently?” 

Sephy blinked hard, both disconcerted and touched by Yaz’s ability to remember seemingly-inconsequential details about her life. She had indeed made a deal with River – hideous postcards in exchange for the naffest, tackiest, weirdest aprons she could find. It had become something of a running joke, and she was particularly proud of some of her finds over the years. 

“Not recently, no, but I’m sure I’ll find something in February.” 

“What’s happening in February?” 

“Fashion Week,” Sephy adopted a theatrical, overly-dramatic tone: “ _Darling_.” 

“Oh Christ. Are they big on tacky aprons at Fashion Week?” 

“No, but I’m sure I can repurpose something. I’m sure River would take great joy in wiping flour on a piece of Dior.” 

“Christ, wouldn’t we all?” Yaz smirked, then her expression grew sombre. “Or does that offend your newly-trendy outlook on life?” 

“God, no. I’d happily wipe all kinds of crap on most of that designer stuff.” 

“I can’t believe you’re into fashion now,” Yaz raised her eyebrows in bafflement. “After all that disavowal. How’s it going? I mean, not just with the fashion; in general?” 

Sephy let out a long breath. “Honestly?” she asked, wondering how to begin. “Not great. In a bit of a mess.” 

“Ah. I was wondering about the phone call out of the blue.”

Sephy felt a sudden, hot rush of shame. “Sorry,” she mumbled, realising that she had perhaps been selfish in demanding Yaz’s presence in London. “God, I’m so… I shouldn’t have..” 

“Babe,” Yaz said gently, reaching over and patting her arm. “It’s fine. I was just teasing. I’m here for you, remember? That’s what friends are for. What’s up?” 

“So, urm,” Sephy ran a hand through her hair and refusing to meet Yaz’s gaze. “The designer in question? The one I’m working for?” 

“Yeah?” 

“It’s Clara.” 

A silence hung between them, heavy and oppressive. Sephy was unsure what she’d expected – a yelp of shock, or cursing, maybe. This was worse.

“Shut up,” Yaz said at last, her tone heavy with disbelief. “Shut up, it can’t be.” 

“I mean, I think I’d know. I’ve seen her up close and everything. Kissed her and all.”

The words left her mouth in a hot, embarrassed rush, and the silence resumed between them, more weighted than before. 

“You’ve… what?” Yaz asked in a small, dangerous voice. 

“Kissed her.” 

“You’ve…” 

“Kissed her.” 

“Kissed… her.” 

“Yeah.”

“You’ve kissed the woman who may or may not have been shagging your dad?” Yaz asked, her voice growing louder with each word she spoke, and Sephy flinched. 

“She wasn’t shagging my dad.”

“And she’s told you that, has she? She knows who you are, and she’s told you that?” 

“No, she doesn’t, but yes, she has.” 

“She doesn’t know who you are?!” 

“Of course she doesn’t!” Sephy protested, throwing up her hands in exasperation. “If she knew, she wouldn’t have kissed me back, would she?” 

“But you know who she is, and you apparently kissed her?!” 

“It’s… complicated.” 

“Too bloody right!” Yaz looked scandalised, her eyes wide and incredulous. “What do you think you’re playing at?!” 

“I’m not playing at anything!”

“But she doesn’t know who you are.” 

“That isn’t playing,” Sephy noted in as magnanimous a tone as she could muster. “That’s just… withholding information. If she knew who I was, she’d think I had awful ulterior motives.” 

“And do you?” 

“No!” Sephy shook her head, horrified by the mere suggestion. She knew Yaz would suspect her of this, and knew Clara would do the same. “No, of course not!” 

“But you’ve kissed her.”

“Because she’s very…” 

“Very what?” 

“Very… alluring.” 

“God, you stupid woman,” Yaz looked at her with disgusted incredulity. “How could you do that?” 

“Yaz, I didn’t…”

“River is absolutely going to kill you if she ever finds out, and with good bloody reason!” 

“She isn’t going to find out.” 

“Yeah, because you shagging a fashion designer who the media love to hate is really going to be kept under wraps, isn’t it?” 

“We haven’t shagged.” 

“Yet.” 

Sephy half-wanted to ask why Yaz was being so caustic about the revelation, but she had known that Yaz’s reaction would be harsh; she had wanted honest advice, and honest advice was what she was getting. 

“It’s not even a relationship, it’s just… I don’t know,” she sighed and took a sip of her tea, burning the roof of her mouth as she did so. “Ow. It’s just… being friends. Friends who sometimes kiss.”

“And sometimes more?” 

“Yes, and sometimes more. But only on various conditions.” 

“Let me guess; she’s straight, so the only chance of you getting anywhere near her is if-”

“Going to cut you off right there,” Sephy interjected, not wanting to hear where Yaz’s mind had immediately gone. “Because no. The condition is that if she wants it, she cleans up her act.” 

“Dear god, tell me you are not using your vagina as bribery to get someone clean.” 

“I’m… not using my vagina as bribery to get someone clean.”

“That could literally not have sounded less sincere.” 

“Well, it’s marginally sincere.” 

“Look, I’m sure it’s a very nice vagina, but you can’t pimp yourself out in exchange for a sobriety chip.” 

Sephy snorted, breaking into irreverent giggles. “God, I missed this.”

“Missed what?” Yaz frowned, wrong-footed by Sephy’s good humour.

“You telling it how it is.” 

“I’m northern. You’re mostly northern. It’s what we do. And I’m not accepting this nonsense. You cannot shag your dad’s sort-of love-affair.” 

“They did not have a love affair!” 

“You still can’t shag her.” 

“Yes but… consider this,” Sephy looked dramatically into the middle distance then said slowly: “She is really, really fit.” 

“You are absolutely bloody incorrigible,” Yaz groaned. “Is she at least a good kisser?” 

“I’d say so.”

“But she… your dad…” 

“I know,” Sephy sighed. “And I feel terrible. Really, I do. I don’t know why the hell I feel like this and I don’t know how to stop it but maybe… just maybe… it could be a case of once we’ve done the deed, I’ll be over it?” 

“‘Done the deed’?” Yaz wrinkled her nose. “What are you, nine?”

“Shut up.”

“You can say ‘have sex,’” Yaz pointed out. “You are a grown up.” 

“Yeah but that just feels very… clinical.” 

“No, the whole point is that sex doesn’t feel clinical,” Yaz shot back, then smirked. “But I get your point. How long has she got to be clean for before you finally agree to ‘do the deed’, then? Because she might die of whatever the lady equivalent of blue balls is before that. Because frankly, you’re very attractive, and if I was into women, you’d be my type.”

“Thanks,” Sephy tipped her friend a wink. “Two weeks. Is that a reasonable amount of time to wait?” 

“Oh, god yes,” Yaz let out a relieved sigh, evidently concerned by how long Sephy had intended to keep Clara celibate for. “I’ve strung men on for far longer than that, and they have much, much less willpower than us.” 

“So she won’t die of lady-blue-balls?” 

“I would consider it unlikely, but it depends if you’re going to urm… conduct any stress relief beforehand.”

Sephy’s cheeks coloured at the insinuation. “I urm… I don’t know. And I thought you were opposed to this whole thing!” 

“I _am_ opposed to this whole thing. But I think you need to get it out of your system, so get it out of your system and then get on with your life and hope that the media never find out, because if they do, I don’t fancy investigating River for your murder.” 

“You’re the wrong police force to investigate River for anything. That’d be the Met’s job.”

“God, you’re _such_ a sodding pedant.” 

“Complaints?” Sephy asked with a grin. 

“None at all.” 

“Good. You know, Yaz, you give very good advice, but you must also remember… I am very good at not telling River things.”

“Yes, but the media is a thing now, babe. And so is social media, so you’re like, doubly screwed.” 

“Yeah, well, the media are thicker than they look,” Sephy shrugged dismissively. “Besides, we’ll be covert. We were _really_ covert when we made out in her office. No media there.”

“Admit it,” Yaz sipped her tea thoughtfully. “You’re not into her, you just have a desk kink. What is it? Is it acting like a sexy secretary, is that what – _ow_!” 

Sephy held the tea towel she had just used to flick Yaz’s leg with at her side with a smirk.

“I did not agree to come down south to be assaulted with a tea towel,” Yaz said disapprovingly. “Let’s at least make it a fair fight; give us one.”


	25. Chapter 25

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As Fashion Week approaches, Clara receives terrible news.

“I’m here!” Sephy called as she stepped out of the lift, a plastic bag full of takeaway Chinese food swinging from her right hand as she waited expectantly for Clara to appear from her office and greet her. The offices around her were dark, but she could hear the familiar whirring of sewing machines from further afield, and she knew that the seamstresses would be hard at work despite the lateness of the hour. There were less than ten days until their Fashion Week show, the denouement of months of hard work, and the entirety of the creative staff were on overdrive, putting final touches to garments, selecting accessories, trialling hair and makeup styles, and flicking desperately through portfolios in order to find additional models to walk the catwalk alongside Sephy and Ryan.

“Hello?” she called again, more hesitantly this time, but finding herself met with nothing but silence, she wandered further into the offices, heading for Clara’s studio. As she opened the door to the nearest workshop, the heads of the seamstresses snapped up at once, and the woman nearest the door got to her feet, wringing her hands as she all but ran up to Sephy with tangible relief.

“Thank god,” she said in a soft Scottish burr, her green hair catching the light as she looked to Sephy as though she were some kind of saviour. “Sephy, she’s… you need to go in there, she’s… oh, goodness, it’s awful. Please.”

Sephy felt her heart sink into her boots, immediately thinking the worst. “What is it?” she asked, panic starting to pulse through her system. “What’s happened?”

“She’s…” Vastra – Sephy was sure that was her name – shook her head sadly. “Oh, goodness. I don’t even know… we’re all so devastated for her…”

“What is it?” Sephy asked again, reaching over and laying a hand on Vastra’s arm. “What’s happened to Clara?”

“The collection,” Vastra said softly, eyes wide and full of sorrow. “Some of it… it’s been leaked online.”

The world around them seemed to stop as the magnitude of what Vastra had said sunk in.

“But…” Sephy blinked hard, not understanding how such a thing could have happened. “How can it have been? I don’t… how?”

“We don’t know,” Vastra said with a sad little shrug, twisting her hands together as she spoke. “But… people haven’t… they’ve not been particularly kind, not all of them. I don’t know what they want the poor girl to do – they criticise her for anything monochromatic; they criticise her for anything with colour; they criticise ‘staid and boring,’ they criticise ‘out there’. What do they bloody want from her? Stop moving the goalposts! But you know… I mean, sorry, that’s by the by… she’s…”

“How did she find out?”

“ _The Sun’s_ newsdesk rang and asked for comment.”

“Oh, Jesus.”

“And then she had no idea what they were talking about, so they hung up on her, and she googled herself.”

Sephy grimaced. “Oh, god.”

“She’s… please, you need to go in. She’s… it’s just awful.”

Sephy looked around at the assembled team and felt a sudden, irrational lurch of anger as they all steadfastly refused to meet her gaze. Those who weren’t overtly eavesdropping seemed entirely engrossed in their work. “Why aren’t any of you in there looking after her?”

“Because she wouldn’t have it!” Vastra shot back, scowling at the accusatory nature of Sephy’s tone. “We tried – almost three years she’s known me, and she nearly took my head off when I offered her a cup of tea. She threw something at poor bloody Saibra – a sketchbook, I think it was, and her aim isn’t brilliant, but that’s not… she wouldn’t have it. None of us. She didn’t want anyone other than you.”

“Why didn’t anyone call me?”

Vastra clicked her tongue impatiently. “Well, we knew you’d be here this evening. On the dot of six o’clock every evening; we could set our watches by it. We thought perhaps by the time you arrived, she might have burned herself out somewhat.”

“And has she?”

“Well she’s been almost silent for the last hour.”

Sephy felt fear clench around her heart, ice-cold and visceral. “And have any of you…” she swallowed thickly. “Have any of you checked on her? Checked she hasn’t done anything…” she couldn’t finish the sentence. She didn’t need to.

“She wouldn’t,” Vastra said with quiet certainty, placing a comforting hand on Sephy’s arm. “No matter how bloody foolish she might be, she’s not that foolish, or that rash.”

“That’s a bold assertion,” Sephy said in a low, dangerous tone. “Know that for sure, do you?”

“I do,” Vastra scowled, raising her head defiantly. “Now, are you going in there and dealing with her, or not?”

“Of course I bloody am!”

“Good,” Vastra grinned, apparently pleased by this outcome. “Might want to leave the food with us.”

“What, so you can eat it?”

“No, so you don’t end up wearing it.”

“Ah,” Sephy acquiesced, setting the bag down on the side. “Right. Might be an idea.”

She approached the door to Clara’s studio, steeling herself with each step she took, and trying to mentally prepare herself for whatever she was about to find. She was torn from her thought by Vastra’s hand on her shoulder, and she wheeled around to face her with the utmost reluctance, beginning to tremble as adrenaline flooded her system.

“One more thing?” Vastra began tentatively, apparently disconcerted by the fierce expression on Sephy’s face.

“Yes?”

“Give her hell. She’ll always need it.”

Sephy laughed shakily and stepped into the studio without further hesitation, closing the door behind her and blinking hard in the darkness. The only light came from the lamp beside Clara’s workstation, but the rest of the room was cast in shadows. Sephy looked around her slowly, trying to discern whereabouts in the room Clara could be, but she could make out only the vaguest of shapes, all of which took on a frightening, sinister nature in the gloom. She took a single step towards the centre of the room, wishing her eyes would adjust, and she held out her hands in front of her, groping around in the darkness to avoid bumping into anything. She supposed she could or should have switched on the lights, but doing so would only startle Clara or unsettle her further, and she knew that was the last thing the designer needed; to be frightened by someone she trusted, even if only by doing something as innocuous as flooding the room with light.

“Clara?” she called softly, keeping her voice low and even. “Clara, it’s Sephy. Where are you?”

There was a soft, muffled whimper from the direction of the desk, and Sephy headed towards it hopefully, frowning in confusion as she found the chair that sat before it empty. This had definitely been the source of the noise, and as she was puzzling the issue, a hand shot out from beneath the workstation and seized her leg, and she let out a startled yelp of horror.

“M’sorry,” a voice mumbled and the hand was retracted, and Sephy sunk to her knees at once, finding Clara curled up underneath the desk. Her arms were wrapped around her legs, and although Sephy couldn’t see her face in the gloom, she knew it would be tear-stained and ashen, and she felt a lurch of pity for her friend.

“Hey,” she said gently, reaching for Clara’s hands and taking them in her own, trying to approximate how best to address the situation as she did so. “Hey, it’s alright. What’s the matter, hey?”

“It’s… it’s…” Clara began to weep, pressing her face into her knees and beginning to rock back and forth as she did so. “They’ve… someone’s… the collection… bad… nasty…”

“You’re not making a lot of sense,” Sephy said gently, knowing it was important that Clara had the opportunity to tell her the devastating news herself. While she might already know what had happened, in giving Clara the opportunity to tell her in her own words would offer her a modicum of power and control over a situation that already seemed entirely hopeless. “What’s happened with the collection.”

“S’been leaked,” Clara mumbled, so quietly it was almost inaudible. “Someone… dunno… got leaked. And people… people are… people are just _horrible bad people_ , and they’re so _rude_ and so _nasty_ and…”

The sobbing redoubled, and Sephy edged closer to Clara, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and drawing her into an awkward, uncomfortable hug. As she did so, her leg knocked against a glass bottle which rolled noisily away in the darkness, and she frowned to herself, wondering precisely how much Clara had had to drink. By the sound of the bottle, there was little liquid still contained therein, but now was not the time to focus on such matters.

“I’m sorry,” she murmured, pressing a gentle kiss to Clara’s temple. “Clara, I’m so, so sorry.”

“All that work… all that effort… and they… they… they… hate it. Hate me. I’m an awful, lousy, shitty, horrible person, and I’m terrible at designing and I’m just going to… retire.”

“You can’t retire,” Sephy nudged her gently in the side, chancing humour. “Or I’ll be out of a job.”

“Good. You can go and work with a proper designer, who makes nice clothes.”

“I don’t want to work for any other designer.”

“Then you’re stupid. Stupid Sephy.”

“No, I just care about you. And if that makes me stupid then… well, I suppose I’m stupid.”

There was a pause, and then Clara asked in a very small voice: “Why are you still here?”

“Because I come over every evening, remember?”

“I don’t mean… not… I mean _here_ , in general. With me. In any capacity. You don’t have to be.”

“No,” Sephy said gently. “But I want to be.”

“You’re…”

“Yes?”

“Unusual.”

“Thank you, I think.”

“I just…” Clara dissolved into tears without warning. “What did I do to deserve this? And the things they were saying… I just… it’s…”

“You don’t deserve this,” Sephy said soothingly, pulling Clara into a proper embrace. “Not at all.”

“I do, I do… oh god, I do, I just… I don’t understand… who would…”

She lapsed into silence, nuzzling into Sephy and beginning to sob in earnest once again, her tears wet against Sephy’s neck. Sephy closed her eyes and rested her cheek against Clara’s hair, stroking soothing patterns on her back and trying not to dwell on the fact that Clara had, against her promise, been drinking. It bothered her more than it should, and she tried to argue that surely this was an extenuating circumstance. This was not an ordinary occurrence for Clara to deal with, and in some ways, it made sense that the designer had lapsed back into unhealthy coping mechanisms to try and alleviate some of the uncertainty and confusion that she was now feeling. In other ways, the fact that she had not even attempted to contact Sephy to discuss things, or tried to reach out to anyone else around her for support, was concerning; her reliance on alcohol to numb her feelings made Sephy feel deeply, uncomfortably nauseous, and she found her mind racing her head, crafting scenario after scenario in which Clara’s problems spiralled into fatal or near-fatal consequences.

“M’sorry,” Clara mumbled, as though reading Sephy’s thoughts. “I know I shouldn’t have… I shouldn’t be drinking. We’ll have to start over again now, won’t we?”

It took a moment for Sephy to realise what Clara was referring to, but when comprehension dawned, she felt only a lingering sense of sadness. “That doesn’t… Clara, that doesn’t matter now; it doesn’t. You’re upset, and if we have to start the two weeks over again, does it really matter?”

“Yes,” Clara muttered, sounding laughably like a petulant child. “Because I want you, and now I have to wait longer for… that.”

Sephy laughed, despite herself. “All that’s happening, and that’s what you want?”

“I mean, I think it’s a good thing to want. Worth waiting for.”

“You flatter me.”

“I’m trying to flirt with you.”

“You’re drunk and you’re crying,” Sephy noted pragmatically. “It’s not the most seductive attempt at flirting I’ve ever been on the receiving end of.”

“I’ll try to do better,” Clara promised in a meek voice, turning her face away from Sephy’s neck and wiping her tears on the back of her hand. “God, I just… why are people so…” she waved her hand vaguely. “Shit?”

“I don’t know,” Sephy said truthfully. “I’m still trying to figure that one out too.”

“I just… I don’t know who would…” Clara sighed, running a hand through her hair. “The girls out there wouldn’t do this to me; there’s no way they’d risk it, not when it would jeopardise their careers. You obviously wouldn’t, and there’s no one else who…” 

She fell ominously, conspicuously silent, and Sephy felt a swooping sense of fear.

“Danny.”

“What about him?”

“He had my iCloud password,” Clara pulled away from Sephy, clambering out from under the desk and getting to her feet unsteadily. “The fucking… I’m going to kill him.”

“Clara-” Sephy began, but Clara had already bolted from the room, leaving Sephy to swear under her breath as she broke into a run in pursuit of her friend.


	26. Chapter 26

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clara tries to throw herself into work, but it's not easy in the wake of such an intense betrayal.

Clara had not been allowed to confront Danny while in the first throes of her fury; Sephy had seen to that. Sephy had been the one who ran after her and all but rugby tackled her to the floor; Sephy had been the one who talked and talked and talked at her until her anger was misaligned in the model’s direction instead; Sephy had been the one who had listened to her shout and swear and simply sat and taken it with maddening passivity, before asking in a calm, measured voice whether Clara was quite finished yet. Sephy had been the one who had made her eat something, even though their food had been almost cold by then; Sephy had been the one who had shared a cab home with her; Sephy had been the one who walked her inside and refused her amorous advances and fetched her a glass of water before leaving her to her own devices, tucking her into bed with a degree of compassion that had, after her departure, reduced Clara to tears.

The next morning, when she had awoken with a pounding, sharp headache, Clara’s anger had not abated. It had still been white-hot and all consuming, and when she’d reached for her phone and discovered a deluge of sharp, critical text messages from those around her, including Yvonne and Donna, she’d felt a second, fresh wave of anger and thrown her phone towards the end of the bed, where it had hit the duvet and then bounced onto the carpet with a dull _thud_. She had wanted to confront Danny; she had wanted to scream in his face and swear at him and punish him for what he had done; and so that was what she had decided to do.

Part of her had known it was wrong, but that part of her had been silenced with black coffee and a slug of vodka and a generous application of red lipstick, which bad been combined nicely with an all-black outfit and skyscraper heels to make her look infinitely more frightening than she usually aspired to be. She’d travelled across the capital, feeling the alcohol work its way into her system as she sat quietly in the corner of the Tube, and by the time she had arrived at his block of expensive private flats, she was almost insensible with rage and intoxication, and the events which had followed were a vague, hazy blur. There had been the doorman, who she had somehow charmed or bargained or flirted her way past; and then the seemingly hundreds of stairs; and then Danny’s front door, which she had pounded upon until her hands ached with the effort of it. There had been Danny, then, smug and self-righteous in his attitude towards her, and she had lost her temper at him; screaming and swearing and trying to lash out at him, until he had been forced to wrap his hands around her wrists for his own protection, half-dragging her downstairs and depositing her onto the pavement outside the building, where she had sat and screamed in the cold for ten minutes, attracting pitying stares from passers-by. She was half-ashamed of all she had said now, but there was the plain fact that he had not denied a word of her accusations, shouted and hysterical although they had been, and she at least now had a degree of proof in his culpability.

She had hobbled and limped and dragged herself back across London, her hands and throat aching, sending him furious text messages wherever the phone signal permitted her to do so, and when she had arrived back at her own home, she had found her messages bouncing back to her, and taken her fury out on a sofa cushion as she realised he had blocked her number, the scattered innards of which were now all over the floor of the lounge. The feathers it had contained were now strewn across the carpet in little drifts, clinging to her feet as she walked through the room, and she had eventually become so angry with their soft, downy presence around the flat that she had overturned the coffee table, watching it shatter with a sense of grim satisfaction. She’d supposed it ought to be cleared up, but there was something oddly pleasing about the juxtaposition of the feathers and jagged-edged shards of glass, and so she left it be, and after the third fragment of the table had pierced the sole of her foot, she’d simply avoided the room, confining herself to her bedroom and the kitchen instead.

Work had at first seemed an impossibility; but then she had realised that in her work, there was the chance to redeem herself, or so she supposed in moments of lucidity; there was still her show, which could prove them all wrong, and so she had dragged herself in each day, fuelled on coffee and spirits and the occasional cigarette; eating little; speaking little; working from when the sun came up until midnight. She was vaguely aware that Sephy was _there_ , but that seemed somehow both tangential and critical to the whole affair, and so things between them were… strange. Strained. They would talk and laugh, Clara feeling the forced jollity of each word she uttered, or they would work in companionable silence, and that was far better; she didn’t have to pretend, or lie, or feign a smile. She didn’t have to put on an act. She could just work, and lose herself in that, and she didn’t have to think about Danny’s betrayal.

The articles that continued to come, slicing her reputation to ribbons, were unrelenting and unceasing in their criticism. From the little Danny had given them – four or five designs, but enough to seal her fate in their eyes – they spun out entire pages of scathing cruelty, picking apart the colours and the fit and the texture of each item, debating her mental state, debating her past, and going over and over in intimate detail the entire history of her. John’s name was prominent in each, and each time she saw it she felt a pang of agony as it brought back a thousand recollections, which she allowed herself the luxury of losing herself to only when she lay in bed each evening.

_“How are you feeling?”_

_Clara spun on her heel, taking in the sight of John, who was stood behind her holding aloft two cups of takeaway coffee with a genuinely concerned expression. She was surrounded by organised chaos – lighting rigs, stacks of uncomfortable plastic chairs, boxes of makeup and hair products, and then racks of clothes in black garment bags – and she felt somewhat lost amongst it all, as though she didn’t belong and she’d stumbled into a world she could hardly understand._

_“What’s that face for?” she shot back with a nervous, high laugh, but he only raised his eyebrows at her in an evident display of concern that she found oddly touching. He had always been able to see past the mask she displayed to the world; always been able to know when she was lying._

_“You look terrified,” he said frankly, holding one cup slightly higher with a flourish. “And exhausted. I got you your favourite; thought it might help.”_

_She thought, for half a beat, about making some acerbic retort about his comments on her appearance, then thought better of it and accepted the proffered cup of coffee. “Thanks,” she mumbled, noting his look of relief, and she wondered whether he had been concerned that he might end up wearing the hot beverage. “You didn’t have to.”_

_“No, but I wanted to. And stop avoiding the question – how are you feeling?”_

_“God,” she took a sip of her drink, trying to find adequate words to succinctly convey what she was feeling. “Terrified. Just… bloody terrified.”_

_“That’s natural. It’s your first show; your first collection. You want it to be perfect. I remember how it feels, and it’s… well, it’s a scary time.”_

_One of John’s models, tall, auburn and impossibly beautiful, passed them and shot Clara a curious look, taking in her drawn, pale appearance with an expression pitched somewhere between compassion and criticism. Before the redhead could open her mouth to form a question, John told her firmly: “She’ll be fine.”_

_“Speak for me again, I’ll detach something from you,” Clara said brightly, then beamed at the model with more confidence than she felt. “I’ll be fine.”_

Wake, work, sleep, repeat. A fallacy, in many ways; she didn’t so much sleep as she did close her eyes for prolonged periods, tossing and turning while her thoughts raced away from her at such speed that it seemed foolish to even attempt to catch up. She didn’t so much work as run on autopilot, checking and double-checking and triple-checking the tiniest details, and when she returned home of an evening, she would realise that she had little to no idea as to what she had agreed or viewed during the course of the day. Decisions were made about hair and makeup which she could not recall; and all she could do was trust in herself to make the right choices, even while running at such limited levels of function as she was.

Waking was agonising; each morning as she rearranged herself in a vaguely vertical position, her head would ache and her mouth would be full of the acrid, foul taste of the previous evening’s drinking, and she would make herself coffee in a bid to dissipate the lingering aftertaste. There was the journey to work, and then the constant, unceasing flurry of questions and choices and decisions, and she wanted nothing more than to shut down and bury herself under her duvet until the show was past, but that was not an option; not when she needed to prove so many people wrong. Aspersions were being made about her, and judgements and criticisms, and what she needed was to regain a sense of control by proving the naysayers incorrect; by stunning them all into silence. And so she worked, and she drank, and she lay in bed, and as the days ticked by, that became the new normal.

The ongoing, sharp ache of what Danny had done weighed upon her with each moment that passed. Whether it was as she lay in bed or sat in the office or stood in the workrooms, overseeing this or that final detail, with each beat of her heart she found herself consumed by the calculated coldness of his actions. She had treated him badly, she knew that; she had reflected upon their time together and she felt the bitter sting of remorse for her actions. She had led him on; she had given him false hope; she had refused to commit. She had picked him up and dropped him in accordance with her own selfish needs and desires, and she had failed to take into account that he was another human being with his own wants and his own hopes; but to her he had been a mere plaything that she took for granted, and the shame of it all almost overwhelmed her as she lay in bed and wept. But for him to do what he had; for him to sell her out to the press? For what end? Her humiliation? Her downfall? What had he hoped to achieve when he made the decision to access her iCloud account and steal her designs; what had he hoped to achieve when he went to the press with them? Was it the money? The fame? The sweetness of revenge? He had once claimed to care about her, and yet these actions were not borne of love, or care. These actions were borne of coldness and hatred, and yet she supposed it was what she deserved.

Clara looked at Sephy often as they sat together or worked together, wondering whether there was the remotest of possibilities that a similar betrayal could come from her. And yet it felt impossible; it felt so laughably unlikely that she rejected the notion at once, because Sephy was the very furthest it was possible to be from Danny, and seemed to be without a cold, cruel bone in her body. It was Sephy who comforted her when she was tired or stressed; Sephy who brought her coffee in the same way that John had; Sephy who had comforted her after those first few awful hours, in which the betrayal had felt red-raw and angry, so tangibly agonising that it felt like a fresh wound. Sephy cared, and Sephy made it obvious that she cared not because she wanted something back, like fame or recognition or a leg-up, but simply because she was a good person. Sephy didn’t even particularly want to be in this industry, and yet she stayed – she stayed because of Clara, or so she purported, and it was hard not to read into that with each assurance that came her way. She would dwell on it as she lay in bed each night, alternating between her loathing of and fury at Danny and her confusion towards and fondness for Sephy, and she would wonder whether she deserved the latter at all.


	27. Chapter 27

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fashion Week arrives, but Clara's mind is elsewhere.

Sephy looked up at the enormous, glossy black structure in front of her and felt a rising tide of nausea as she read the words _London Fashion Week 2018_ picked out in white writing across the front, each letter almost a foot tall and signalling to the world that this was, for one week only, one of the most desirable venues in the fashion world. Part building, part-marquee, the structure had appeared over the past few days in readiness for Fashion Week, although as several people had informed her already – not without a hint of snobbery – the highest of high-end brands would be hiring their own venues, rather than depending on the Show Space. Sephy didn’t much care where she was to be walking, but she supposed this was infinitely more normal than any of the more pretentious offerings she had read about online, so at least there was that small mercy, not to mention the fact that there were nearby coffee outlets, and she was able to blend into the enormous crowd of fashion lovers, journalists, models, and staff as she approached the venue, meaning she was able to pass without being accosted by anyone for a quote or a selfie.

She supposed that was about to change for good, and fought the urge to sigh theatrically. She had only ever embarked on this adventure with the intention of conducting some shameless self-promotion, but the chances of that happening appeared to be ever-diminishing. Perhaps if her name appeared in print, people might at least be inclined to Google her, so there was some silver lining to the entire affair, but the likelihood of being able to network and sell her art seemed far-distant now.

“Big, innit?” a voice asked from next to her, and she snapped her attention towards the sound at once.

“Oh, thank god,” she said warmly, taking in the sight of Ryan, who was dressed in an oversized denim jacket with hoodie-type sleeves, a bright yellow beanie hat, and tracksuit bottoms. His appearance brought with it a surge of relief, and she resisted the urge to hug him on sight. “I thought I was totally on my own in a sea of-”

“Pretentious pricks?” he offered, then grinned. Gesturing to his outfit, he flicked his eyes towards the crowd and then back to himself, continuing: “They see this and they think… nah fam, he’s not one of us. He’s not one of the best; he’s just some kid from the estates. So it’s like… urban camouflage.”

“I’m using that as my excuse too, although I’m less urban and more just… invisible,” Sephy intoned drily, gesturing down at her own standard jeans-and-jumper combination. “I’m giving it, you know… realness. I’m giving it ‘I’m cold and I want to be comfortable’ vibes, that’s what inspired this look. It’s very in this season, I hear.”

“Digging it.”

“Thank you. I think comfort is a highly underrated part of the fashion industry.”

“You’re telling me,” Ryan grimaced. “I did a show last year that had us wearing bejewelled jock straps. Nobody needs that kind of shit in their lives, least of all me. I had scratches all up me arse for a good week from taking the bloody thing off in a hurry when it came to changing outfits. Me nan thought it was hilarious; couldn’t sit down for a week.”

“Suffering for art,” Sephy deadpanned, pressing her hands together in mock piousness. “What is art if not uncomfortable?”

“Do you actually believe that shit?”

“No,” she snorted. “Clothes should be comfortable. Big pants are in, thongs are out. I’m also opposed to anything involving tit tape.”

“A wise choice. At least Clara’s got more sense than that.”

“As far as we know. Assuming she’s not come up with anything ridiculously esoteric overnight,” Sephy sighed. “Which she’d better not have done. She’s still trying to shock, I think. She wants to prove everyone wrong, especially Anna Murphy.”

“Anna Murphy is a prick,” Ryan said at once, his expression clouding over. “Anyone who writes for _The Times_ is a prick; I mean, why are they charging people to read their shit online? Some of us want to read a nuanced, well-argued article without having to pay for the privilege. Not to mention the fact they spit on popular culture; you know, god forbid anything caters to the masses, because that’s terribly bourgeois, darling. It’s all about high art and the bastions of middle-classdom.”

Sephy blinked at him.

“What?” he said, a touch defensive, folding his arms as he spoke. “I’m a black kid from the north of England, I’ve got a lot of thoughts on class.”

“Fair play,” Sephy said drily, then asked worriedly: “Is it normal to feel quite sick? About the show?”

“Totally.”

“And to want to run away crying and hide in a hole until it’s all over?”

“Absolutely. I don’t advise doing that, though; the police get well narky about it.”

“Do you speak from experience?”

“Yeah,” Ryan smirked. “My mate ran off and hid before one of his biggest shows was due to start. Designers went bonkers; his agent went bonkers; his mates and I went bonkers, because he wouldn’t bloody answer his phone. The police found him the next day at his brother’s, playing FIFA and eating a roast. They weren’t best pleased.”

Sephy laughed at the image. “Alright. I’ll make sure I leave the country if I bolt, then.”

“Yeah, that’ll look good on the Interpol report, I’m sure.”

“Do we just...” Sephy dithered, looking warily at the door. “Go in? Do the old ‘don’t you know who I am’ spiel?”

“They have a list,” Ryan said patiently, reaching over and patting her on the shoulder. “Don’t you worry. They’ll let you in.”

“They might not.”

“They will. Stop hoping for a get-out clause; it’s really not that bad. You sit still while they make you look more pretty, you go out and look pretentiously right-sort-of-pretty, you get naked while they change your pretty outfit, you look pretentious-and-pretty some more, then you go home. Or, alternatively, go out on the piss. Or, in your case, go out with Clara.”

Sephy felt her cheeks colour at once, and found herself momentarily lost for words as Ryan snickered.

“What, you think that just because I’ve not been around as much, I didn’t know? Please, everyone at the label knows. It’s one of the worst kept secrets in the place.”

“I…” Sephy managed, struggling to find adequate words. “We… urm… that is to say… we… I…”

“You aren’t dating, I know,” Ryan raised his eyebrows. “You wanna watch yourself with her, Sephy. You saw the implosion of her and the last bloke.”

“It’s different,” Sephy said lamely, hating herself for how clichéd she sounded. “She’s different with me.”

“I mean,” Ryan scrunched his nose up. “If you think that, then fine; but she’s… well, she’s Clara. You’ve known her long enough now to see what she can be like. Self-destructive.”

“I’m working on that.”

“Yeah,” Ryan said simply. “But is it your job to?”

“No, I want to!” Sephy said, stung by the insinuation. “I… she’s… I can’t explain it, but she’s very…”

“Alluring?” Ryan smiled knowingly. “So I hear.”

“Come on, you’re only human; you must have noticed.”

“She ain’t my type.”

“Why? Too short for you?”

“Too woman for me,” Ryan said coolly, and Sephy let out a small _oh_ of understanding. “Yeah, I know. Black, northern, dyspraxic, _and_ gay. It’s like I’m going for the hat trick. Shame I’m not a woman, or I think I’d have ticked all the boxes.”

“Ryan,” Sephy rolled her eyes fondly. “Don’t put yourself down.”

“I’m not,” he spread his palms wide, shrugging. “Just saying I tick a lot of Equality and Diversity boxes. Hire me to make yourselves look inclusive, people.”

“You’re terrible,” Sephy said with a small smile. “Shall we go in?”

“S’pose we ought to, yeah,” Ryan said, heading towards the doors with an air of confidence that Sephy tried to imitate. Crossing the threshold, she let out a small sigh of relief as the warmth of the interior of the space hit her, and she slipped off her gloves, flexing her fingers as feeling began to return to her extremities.

“Ryan Sinclair and Sephy Lautrec,” Ryan said loftily. “Here for the Clara Oswald show.”

A bored-looking lackey with an iPad and a headset scrolled through a list, nodded with studious disinterest, and then intoned in a flat, droning voice: “Along the corridor, fifth left.”

“Cheers,” Ryan said with deliberately overstated brightness, setting off with Sephy hot on his heels, and with each step, she felt her nerves grow.

“I’m not sure about this,” she said in a small voice as they approached the fifth door on the left, which was a sizeable distance further than anticipated. “Really not sure.”

“You can do it,” Ryan said reassuringly. “Would a hug help?”

“Yeah,” she admitted, holding her arms out as Ryan swept her into a bone-crushing embrace which did, to her surprise, help a great deal. When he released her, she felt a fresh sense of calm, and she tried her best to smile. “Just looking pretty, right?”

“Which you’re already great at.”

“Charmer.”

“Nah, just honest,” Ryan winked. “Come on, or we’ll be late.”

* * *

_Hair and makeup done. On in 20. Terrified._

Sephy looked down at her phone as she hit send on the message in their family group chat, and wished for the hundredth time that River and Jenny were here to support her. As it was, they had decided that River was far too recognisable to risk sitting in the audience, and so they were instead sat in a nearby Starbucks, watching the live YouTube stream that was apparently ubiquitous to Fashion Week.

A hand settled on her shoulder and she jumped, letting out a startled yelp, before looking up and finding herself gazing into Clara’s face. The designer looked haggard and exhausted, her eyes ringed by almost-purple circles and her expression haunted as her gaze darted around the room, her hair hanging limply around her cheekbones and her outfit topped by a stained, unkempt-looking cardigan. She knew that Clara had been working almost ceaselessly for the past few weeks, but until now Clara had always taken care to conceal her exhaustion from her staff, wearing a full face of makeup that Sephy now understood to be necessary to hide exactly how run-down she felt.

“Sorry,” Clara mumbled at once, seeing Sephy’s shock and looking abruptly guilty. “Can I… can I have a word?” 

“Sure,” Sephy looked around them, trying to locate a quiet corner. “Where-”

“Outside.”

“Sure,” Sephy got to her feet and followed Clara out into the corridor; the designer reaching towards a rack of clothes and snagging a bright-pink garment bag as they passed. Once the door had swung shut behind them, Clara leant against the wall of the hallway, closing her eyes for a moment and swallowing with tangible effort.

“Are you alright?” Sephy chanced. “You don’t look-”

“I’ll be fine once I’ve had my hair and makeup done,” Clara said flatly, waving her free hand dismissively. “I just need some coffee and some decent foundation and I’ll be alright.”

“You look exhausted.”

“Thanks very much.”

“I mean-”

“I know what you mean, but stop fussing. I don’t sleep much around Fashion Week; never have.”

“Have you-”

“This is for you,” Clara interrupted any further lines of enquiry, thrusting the garment bag at her. “It’s… it’s taken me a long time, but it’s finally done.”

“What is it?” Sephy asked blankly, already turning the bag over as she spoke, seeking the zip and undoing it with shaking fingers.

Inside hung an ankle-length duck-egg blue coat, the exact shade of the gloves she had received all those weeks before for Christmas. There was bright, garish rainbow edging embroidered along the inside of the zip, and the lining was a delicate shade of lavender that was hand-sewn with her initials.

“For me?” she said weakly, running a fingertip over the coat with trepidation, unable to believe something so exquisite could possibly be for her. “You made this for me?”

“I wanted you to have something beautiful.”

“It’s…” Sephy blinked hard, tears suddenly clouding her vision. “Clara, it’s beautiful.”

“I want you to wear it with your last look today.”

“Of course, but-”

Clara nodded decisively and stepped back into the prep room before Sephy could say another word, leaving her alone in the corridor with the coat and a myriad questions.

* * *

As Sephy strode down the catwalk for the final time that day, the hood of her new coat up, she had to admit that she felt powerful. Reaching the end of the expansive runway, she paused, throwing back her hood and flinging out her arms as she critics around her clapped and made notes. After a sufficient pause in her new power pose, she shoved her hands in her pockets and span slowly on the spot, allowing those gathered to take in every detail of the outfit, and then headed back towards the other end of the catwalk, where her fellow models were gathered in a small knot, each arranged into an artful pose as they waited for the end of the show. Ryan was beaming at her in a decidedly unprofessional manner, and as she met his gaze he gave her a small nod of congratulations.

Arriving by his side, she struck a pose as Clara headed out onto the stage in a red dress, her makeup now done and her hair cascading over her shoulders in elegant waves as she held a microphone in both hands. Despite her seemingly polished appearance, however, Sephy could see the effort it was costing her to walk out to the middle of the space and stand still in full view of the critics; to raise her head and meet their gaze; to keep her composure. Her hands shook around the shaft of the microphone, and as Sephy watched, she clutched it tighter as though doing so might disguise her tremors.

As she stood for a moment in the centre of the space, applause rose out of nowhere, quiet at first but then louder and louder. Several of the hatchet-faced critics who had stared Sephy down as she’d walked in each outfit got to their feet, and Clara’s expression changed; moving from fear to surprise, and finally to elation. She opened her mouth to speak as the applause died down, looking around the room in anticipation, and then, without warning, fell forwards, collapsing onto the stage with a sickening _thud_.


	28. Chapter 28

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After Clara's collapse, the show descends into chaos. Can Sephy salvage the event? Or is Clara's reputation ruined?

The room was, as one, holding its breath. Two hundred journalists, critics, bloggers and influencers remained entirely immobile in their seats in the audience, collectively refusing to break the silence that had fallen as Clara had hit the stage. Looking around, Sephy was struck by the oddest sense of unreality: the audience had frozen almost exactly as they were, mouths half open and hands paused comedically mid-applause; the models around her were still arranged in artful poses which were now combined with expressions of shock; and Clara was still crumpled in a small, fragile heap in the centre of the short stage at the end of the catwalk, her face turned away from Sephy. It felt like a tableau of a scene rather than an actual event; as though all the actors involved may suddenly jerk back into motion at any given second and carry on as though nothing had happened, and Sephy had the strangest sensation that she should somehow be involved in returning things to normal.

“Clara?” she said in a low urgent voice, taking half a step forwards, and somehow that was enough to unleash pandemonium. The entire room erupted into sound and motion; models backed away, retreating from the chaos as fast as they could manage; the audience reached for their phones and cameras almost in one collective motion; staff for the event began shouting instructions and moving in front of the audience, in a desperately inept bid to discourage the taking of photos of what had happened.

Against the tide of models slipping back into the relative anonymous safety of backstage, Sephy pushed forwards, struggling towards Clara and dropping to her knees beside her friend. She could feel the eyes and lenses of the audience boring into her as she reached for Clara’s wrist and found a dramatically escalated pulse racing just below the skin.

“Clara?” she said again, giving the designer a gentle little shake by the shoulder and trying to ignore her own rising sense of panic. “Clara, can you hear me?”

There was a lack of response, and she frowned as she tried to remember what they had taught her on a first aid course she had attended some years prior. She’d assessed for danger – and ignored danger, if the cameras around her could be seen as a threat – and checked for a response, so she tilted Clara’s chin gently up, securing her airway, and then listened to her breathing for a moment, noting how shallow each inhalation and exhalation seemed.

“Come on,” she whispered, her fingers seeking out Clara’s pulse again. It was still racing far beyond what could be considered normal, galloping out of control, and there was a nagging, insidious thought in the back of her mind which she tried to ignore; a question as to what exactly had caused such an elevated heartrate. “Clara, come on, wake up. Come on. Please.”

There remained a total and utter lack of response, and Sephy fought the urge to cry as she looked down at Clara’s prone form. Despite the hair and makeup, Sephy knew that the designer was still as exhausted and overwrought as she had been before the show, and her skin looked pale and wan underneath the foundation that had been expertly applied in a bid to make her appear put-together and healthy. Sephy fought the urge to stroke Clara’s cheek gently, knowing that the fashion world would be watching, and instead she kept her head bowed and her fingers on Clara’s wrist, checking her pulse almost mechanically.

A hand landed on her shoulder and Sephy yelped, before realising that it was only Ryan, who crouched beside her and looked down at Clara with a tangible sense of pity that both irked and comforted Sephy.

“Recovery position, right?” he asked in a low voice, and Sephy blinked at him for a moment, trying to make sense of the words, before understanding what he meant and working with him to roll Clara onto her side.

“She’s…”

“She’s gonna be alright,” Ryan said firmly, positioning himself deliberately between Clara and one of the largest, most intrusive-looking cameras. The owner let out a melodramatic huff of irritation and started to move to the left to try and get a better shot, but a scowl from Ryan convinced them otherwise and the photographer in question slunk towards the exit. He continued in the same careful, quiet tone: “And if nothing else… this is really good publicity.”

Sephy chuckled softly, looking down at Clara as she spoke and smiling sadly. “True.”

“Everyone is gonna be looking this one up on YouTube… seeing the designs… seeing us looking totally on point… we’ve gone viral” he gave an easy shrug, which he coupled with an expression of awe. “She knows how to play the press.”

“She hasn’t done this on purpose,” Sephy said in a chastising tone, although she knew he was right – there was no way that the media could ignore this, and thus by extension, Clara’s collection would receive a significant amount of column inches. “Her pulse is going bonkers, for a start.”

“Yeah, well,” Ryan rolled his eyes. “If you will insist on not eating or sleeping and then downing six cups of coffee, that’ll happen.”

“Just coffee?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Never mind,” Sephy let out a long breath, her fears allayed. “Do you think anyone’s called an ambulance?”

“Dunno,” Ryan frowned, looking around them glumly. Most of the audience had wandered out of the exits towards the bar, having taken their obligatory photo or video clip of the prone designer, and thus having lost interest. “This lot… I wouldn’t be surprised if none of these tossers thought to. Too busy updating their Instagram Stories or their Twitter feeds to think about it, I reckon.”

He got to his feet.

“Oi!” he called, and the few remaining audience members who were not looking at the stage snapped their attention to him at once. “Anyone called an ambo?”

There was a guilty outbreaking of muttering, and then a short, middle-aged bloke who had been lurking at the back of the room raised his hand and called: “I did.”

Ryan’s expression changed almost at once, and he beamed. “Thanks, grandad,” he said warmly, and the stranger smiled back, approaching them without any further invitation. Sephy frowned, unsure why Ryan had adopted such a teasing term for this stranger, who was obviously concerned about Clara’s welfare.

“Is she alright?” the middle-aged man asked, and it was then that Sephy noticed his distinct lack of Fashion Week-type attire, or a camera, or even a smartphone. He stood at the edge of the low stage, dithering for a moment before climbing up and coming to kneel beside them. “Anything I can do to help?”

“I think we’ve got it under control,” Ryan looked down at Clara, and then back up at the man now by his side. “Thanks though, grandad.”

“Knew that first aid course would be useful,” the stranger said, and Ryan laughed. “Good investment on my part.”

“Hang on,” Sephy frowned, looking between the two of them as the penny dropped. “Do you know each other?”

“Yeah, he’s me grandad,” Ryan said casually. “Well, step-grandad. Comes to all me shows.”

“Graham O’Brien,” Ryan’s grandad said warmly, extending one hand to shake, which Sephy did. “And you’re…?”

“Sephy Lautrec. Don’t ask.”

“Painter, wasn’t he?”

“Yeah,” Sephy blinked hard, surprised that he recognised the name. “He was.”

“Is she showing any sign of improvement?” Graham asked, and Sephy looked down at Clara, whose eyes remained closed.

“No,” she mumbled, turning away so that they couldn’t see the tears which stung her own eyes. “No, she’s not.”

“Easy, love,” he said gently, and something in his tone was so comforting that she felt sure she was going to dissolve into tears. “She’s going to be fine.”

“You don’t know that,” Sephy said in a small voice, swallowing hard in a bid to prevent herself from crying in front of this relative stranger or the last few remaining journalists, who were stubbornly resisting the staff’s attempts to shoo them out of the room. “You can’t promise that.”

“I know we’ve got a cracking NHS,” Graham said reassuringly. “Saved my neck a fair old few times, let me tell you.”

“If they ever get here,” Ryan muttered. “If these bastards ever stop staring, and if the organisers actually bother, you know, sending any first aiders. Beautiful and glam though we may be, but we ain’t professionals.”

Sephy looked down at Clara, and hesitated for a moment before taking her hand and giving it a gentle squeeze. “C’mon,” she breathed. “Just wake up… say something… anything. Tell me I look crap. Swear at all these people with cameras. Anything.”

Nothing. There was nothing, and as the doors opened and two paramedics rushed in, Sephy let go of Clara’s hand and rushed backstage, no longer able to conceal her devastation.

* * *

“Clara?”

The voice seemed almost impossibly far away, and it took all her energy to focus on it.

“Clara, can you hear me?”

It seemed to be getting closer, and it was almost certainly getting louder.

“Clara, I need you to open your eyes for me if you can.”

It was a gentle, kind voice; not one that she recognised, but one that she almost instinctively wanted to please. Why was it asking her to open her eyes? Why was it asking if she could hear them? Of course she could hear them; of course she could open her eyes. What kind of question was that?

With considerable difficulty, her eyes fluttered open, and she let out a sound of distress, immediately screwing them shut again. There was whiteness all around her; agonising bright, glaring whiteness that hurt her eyes.

“That was good!” the voice said encouragingly. “It’s alright; you can do this. Come on. I know it’s bright, but you can do it.”

She tried again, opening her eyes more slowly this time. A millimetre at first, then two, then three, until the whiteness separated into tangible shapes and objects that she could assign familiar names to. Grey ceiling tiles. White walls. Harsh strip lighting.

“Where…” she rasped, realising only then that there was an oxygen mask over her face and trying to reach up to remove it.

“No, no, no,” the voice said, placing a hand over hers to stop her, and with difficulty she followed the hand up, along an arm, to a pretty female doctor with coffee-coloured skin and short hair. “You need that, please don’t touch it.”

“Where…” Clara tried again, looking down at her hand, which was connected to a drip and an oximeter, which was clipped to one finger and made her whole hand feel oddly unbalanced and uncoordinated.

“You’re in hospital. I’m Doctor Hudson. Do you remember what happened?”

Clara shook her head, but as she did so, she felt flashes of recollection beginning to stir. The show. Sephy. Applause. And then…

“You collapsed at work,” Doctor Hudson explained patiently, as the memory struck her. “And you were brought in by paramedics. Nervous exhaustion, we think, although we’re going to run a few more tests just to rule out anything more serious.”

 _Collapsed at work_.

Panic flooded through Clara in an instant as she remembered the expectant faces of the audience as she’d stood poised to speak, and she knew that by now, news of her collapse would be all over the internet. There would be further speculation about her mental health and her perceived fragility, and nobody would be looking at her collection or her work; all focus would be on her, and how stable or unstable she seemingly was. Her eyes filled with tears, and she closed them again in a bid to hide her sorrow from this kind, reassuring doctor who was now looking at her with a degree of compassion that made her feel all the worse.

“It’s alright,” the doctor assured her. “You’re going to be alright.”

Clara shook her head silently, unable to find the words to elucidate how she felt.

“There’s people here to see you,” Doctor Hudson continued, elevating the bed into something more approximating a sitting position. “Would you like me to send them in?”

Clara’s eyes snapped open at once. She nodded emphatically, and as Doctor Hudson mirrored the gesture and stepped out into the corridor, she wiped her unencumbered hand across her eyes furiously, refusing to allow anyone to see her cry.

The two people who stepped into the room looked frightened and wary as they did so, as though afraid of what they might find. Upon seeing Clara sat up and awake, they both broke into simultaneous grins, and Clara felt a rush of affection for them both.

“Hi, love,” her father said warmly, welling up as he spoke. “Oh, you gave me quite the scare.”

Without Doctor Hudson present to chastise her, Clara reached up and removed her oxygen mask, giving him a warm smile as she did so. “Sorry, Dad,” she mumbled, reaching out for him with her good hand, but he ignored the proffered hand and swept her into a gentle, nervous hug instead. “Won’t do it again.”

“Scared me, too,” Sephy said quietly, hanging back at the end of the bed as Clara’s dad released her from the embrace with reluctance. “A lot.”

Clara looked up at Sephy, trying and failing to read her expression. She was still dressed in her final outfit from the show, her hands thrust deep into the pockets of her coat, and her eyes looked red and sore in a way that they had not earlier.

“Sephy was bloody brilliant,” her dad said in a voice thick with tears, and he drew out a handkerchief and blew his nose loudly. “I went off to try and find… I don’t know, anyone, any bloody one, to come and help, but she knew what to do; put you in the recovery position and everything. Sat with you until the paramedics came, and then met me here and sat with me.”

“Really, it wasn’t… anyone else would have done the same…”

“But nobody did,” her dad said, cutting her off. “It was just her and that other chap – Ryan, is it? – helping you at the show. They took good care of you, Clara.”

“Did you?” Clara asked, her eyes fixed on Sephy, who hesitated and then nodded once. “Why?”

“Clara!” her father admonished. “What sort of a question is that for the poor girl?! It was the right thing-”

“You know why,” Sephy breathed, their eyes meeting, and Clara felt a jolt of something she couldn’t name as she saw the fear and sadness and relief laid bare in the other woman’s eyes. “Don’t you?”

Clara’s dad looked between the two of them in confusion, his face contorted into a frown as he battled to understand what was occurring.

“Clara…” he asked at last, breaking the terse silence. “Sorry if it’s rude to ask, but Sephy… she’s your what exactly?”

“Yes,” Sephy murmured, biting her lip. “I’m your what, exactly?”


	29. Chapter 29

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spurred on by her dad's encouragement, Clara asks Sephy an important question...

“Dad,” Clara closed her eyes, her head pounding uncomfortably in response to the bright hospital lights and the complex, multi-layered nature of her dad’s inquiry. Why did he have to pick that question? Of all the questions he could have asked, why had he selected that one, and why now? Every part of her ached, her mouth felt dry, her thoughts were fuzzy and chaotic, and he wanted her to answer the question that had been resting, unspoken, between her and Sephy over the last few weeks? Worse still, _Sephy_ wanted an answer, and somehow that seemed all the more pressing. How could she be expected to formulate a response that wouldn’t offend either of them? The last thing Clara wanted to do was alienate Sephy, but she had no idea what her friend wanted or how she felt about her – or rather, she’d thought she had no idea, but her actions at the show seemed to speak a thousand words; volumes more than any words exchanged between them ever had. But did she – could she – possibly want… well, whatever this was becoming? Or was that simply optimism on Clara’s part? Perhaps Sephy simply wanted to be friends – she could be one of those people who treated all others with extravagant compassion and gentleness. Perhaps Clara was not special at all in her eyes.

“What?” her dad asked, seeming genuinely unaware of the turmoil his question had thrown her into. “It’s not an unreasonable question.”

Clara opened her eyes a fraction, and saw Sephy’s expression fall in response to something unspoken; some twist of her mouth or movement of her eyebrows.

“Yeah, it’s…” Sephy dropped her gaze, her voice shrinking away to little more than a whisper. “Sorry. Forget I… it’s not important. Of course it’s not important. You need to get better, that’s what’s important.”

“No, it is important,” her dad continued to press, apparently failing to pick up on Sephy’s verbal and non-verbal signals, all of which answered his question perfectly. “Come on, is she your girlfriend or isn’t she?”

“Excuse me,” Sephy mumbled, and almost ran from the room with her head bowed.

“No-” Clara began, struggling to get up, but her dad placed a gentle hand on her shoulder, guiding her back into a sitting position. “Dad-”

“You just lay there and get better,” he said sternly. “Don’t go rushing after her; she’ll come back in her own time.”

“She might n-”

“I saw the way she was looking at you,” he raised his eyebrows, and she felt a surge of exasperation. “She’ll come back. In the meantime, is there anything you want to tell me about Sephy?”

“Like what?”

“Clara Oswin Oswald, you know full well what.”

“She’s not my girlfriend, if that’s what you mean,” Clara shot back, scowling up at him. “So, pipe down.”

“Why isn’t she your girlfriend? She’s obviously bonkers about you, and you about her.”

“What are you, a matchmaker? A cheerleader?” Clara said sourly, closing her eyes again to avoid having to look at his over-eager grin. “Relationships do have to be based on something other than limitless adoration.”

“You know,” her dad said in a maddeningly snide tone. “I’ve known you for your whole life, and I know when you’re lying. So you can stay in this mood and be evasive and say she’s not your girlfriend and avoid answering why not, or you can answer the bloody question and then ask her to be your girlfriend, like a sensible person.”

“Why don’t you ask her to be _your_ girlfriend?” Clara snapped. “Seeing as you seem so obsessed with the subject?”

“Don’t get bitchy with me, madam,” he warned, in a voice she had not heard since she was a teenager. “You aren’t too old or too famous for a clip round the ear.”

“You wouldn’t dare.”

Her dad flicked her lightly on the side of the head with his finger, and she yelped in surprise.

“Oi!”

“Stop being bitchy and evasive. Why isn’t she your girlfriend? You’re patently bonkers about her.”

“Because,” Clara said wearily. “She’s one of the only true friends I currently have, and I don’t want to screw that up like I’ve screwed up every relationship I’ve ever been in.”

“Oh, don’t be so over-dramatic.”

“Yes, because things ended so well with Danny.”

“Well, I wouldn’t know, would I?” her dad said with uncharacteristic bluntness. “I missed all that, didn’t I?”

Clara felt a pang of guilt as she realised the veracity of his words; all he would have known of the subject would have been what played out in the press. “Dad, I… look, I’m just… I’m not good at relationships and I don’t want to mess things up with her and then lose her as a friend.”

“Why can’t a relationship be based on a solid friendship? Surely it should just be an extension of that?”

“Dad, you have been watching _way_ too much daytime television,” Clara groaned, putting her hands over her face. “Why are you being so weird about this?”

“Because I loved your mum,” he said quietly. “And I want to see you just as happy as we were. And it’s obvious to me that that young lady makes you happier than you’ve been in a while, and I don’t want fear to hold you back from going in pursuit of your own happiness.”

“But what if I hurt her?” Clara worried aloud, biting down on her lip. “I mean, not… I would never… not… you know, _physically_ , but what if I break her heart?”

“You won’t, because you work every day to make sure you don’t. And it won’t always be easy; there will be times you’re angry or sad and you don’t want to work on it that day. There will be times when she makes you so hopping mad that you just want to scream and shout and swear. That’s alright. There were days when your mother would drive me almost to distraction, but you work on it. You compromise. You meet in the middle. You find outlets to manage your frustration. You learn to make it work, and you learn together.”

“What if I mess up, though?”

“Then you do what I do,” her dad chuckled. “You buy flowers, you say sorry, and you mean it. Then you make sure it doesn’t happen again. I forgot our wedding anniversary once, and your mum went mad. After that, I wrote it in every new diary I got. First thing that went in. ‘Anniversary.’ Then your mum’s birthday.”

Clara grinned up at him cheekily. “And my birthday?”

“Yes, when you came along. Don’t change the subject.”

“Dad…” Clara sighed. “I’m just… scared.”

“Everyone is scared when they start dating someone. When I met your mum, I was terrified she was going to wake up one morning and think, ‘gosh, why am I seeing such a weird bloke?’ or ‘I could do so much better,’ but she never did. It frightened the life out of me, especially after you were born – I thought she’d think I was useless, or that I’d make a mistake and she’d be angry. But she never was. Even when I put your nappies on wrong or when I accidentally woke you up in the night – she was never cross for long. You’ve got to remember that with the fear of making a mistake or doing or saying the wrong thing, there also comes the happiness of being together.”

“I’m confiscating your television,” Clara said weakly. “You’ve definitely watched too many of those self-help shows.”

“Am I wrong?”

“No, you’re not, and that’s what’s so annoying.”

“I’m your dad, I’m meant to be annoying,” he poked his tongue out at her. “Remember?”

“Are you?”

“Are you going to ask that girl to be your girlfriend or am I going to have to do it for you?”

“What am I, five?”

“I don’t know, you seem to be acting like it,” he countered.

“Oi!”

Her dad adopted a wheedling tone. “Excuse me, my daughter asked me to ask you-”

“Dad!” Clara complained, laughing in spite of herself. “Pack it in. Go and find her, and I’ll ask her.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really. Stop nagging. You seem overly concerned with my love life.”

“Is it so wrong to want my daughter to be happy?”

“Go and find Sephy, already.”

Her dad grinned triumphantly and slipped out of the room, and Clara leaned her head back on the pillows with a sigh. He was right, and she knew he was right; the joy and warmth that came from a relationship should always negate the fear and niggling anxiety that you might have that your partner might, one day, decide they’d had enough. In the past, there had always been a distinct imbalance; her on-off relationship with Danny had been overshadowed by their almost ceaseless arguing, and so her fear of losing him had been minimal in comparison to an ongoing sense of anger and frustration, and there had been very little joy or contentment involved, particularly in the latter stages of their… well, whatever it had been.

But being with Sephy… even now, even as friends, the sense of happiness and safety that she felt when they were together was exponential. She could be herself; she could be open; she could be weird. There was a constant undercurrent of anxiety, yes; anxiety that Sephy might decide she’d had enough, anxiety that she might say or do the wrong thing, anxiety that she might mess up so badly that she would drive Sephy away. But when they were together, even if it was just working, there was a sense of security and calmness that she’d never experienced with anyone else.

She’d entertained the notion of the two of them being together, of course. She couldn’t help it – in idle moments and on quiet evenings, as she lay alone in bed or lounged around at home, she would wonder what it would be like to have Sephy by her side. She’d wonder how it would feel to come home to someone; how it would feel to have someone hold her as she fell asleep. She’d wonder what it would be like to share her space with Sephy, and what it would be like to be able to hold her hand as they walked down the street or went for dinner together. It had seemed, as she’d daydreamed, like a far-off dream; a ridiculous ambition that could never come to pass. And yet now? Now, as she lay in her hospital bed, the prospect of it all coming true suddenly close enough to touch, she began to allow herself to hope.

There was a soft knock on the door, startling her from her thoughts, and she looked up as Sephy crossed the threshold without waiting for an invitation. She was still garbed in the coat Clara had made for her with such care, and her eyes looked – if at all possible – redder than they had before. _She’s been crying_ , Clara knew at once. _But why?_

“Hi,” Clara said brightly, trying to ignore the way that her heart was racing in her chest. The fear that she and her dad had discussed was suddenly an almost tangible weight settled over her shoulders, and her mind began to race out of control, wondering what would happen when Sephy inevitably rejected her. “I-”

“Look, it’s fine,” Sephy said quickly, and something about the expression on her face confirmed Clara’s suspicions. “I get it, you know? You’re not the type to settle down, and that’s alright – like, I’m not going to hold it against you. I just think maybe-”

“What are you talking about?” Clara frowned, struggling to process the words. “What?”

“You’re not interested,” Sephy shrugged, and Clara finally understood why she had been crying. “I get it.”

“I’m…” Clara blinked hard, wrong-footed by Sephy’s incorrect assumption. “No, you’ve… I’m _very_ interested. Are you?”

Sephy’s cheeks coloured in response to such a direct question. “I… yeah.”

“Is that all you can say about me?” Clara teased, her anxiety giving way to a state of near-hyperactivity and she found herself full of unanticipated energy. “Come on, I’d like a few more words than that.”

“Yes, I’m interested,” Sephy mumbled shyly, looking down at the floor as she spoke. “I just thought… you weren’t.”

“I thought _you_ weren’t,” Clara countered, arching one eyebrow delicately and trying to resist the urge to clamber out of bed and wrap her arms around Sephy. “Which leaves us at something of an impasse, doesn’t it?”

“Suppose so.”

“Would an acceptable resolution to the impasse be asking you to be my girlfriend?”

Sephy let out a small sound of shock, but kept her gaze firmly on the mottled hospital flooring.

“I…” she said breathlessly. “I… yes. It would be a really, really great resolution.”

“Alright,” Clara mused. “Could you look at me, then?”

Sephy looked up at her, and Clara was surprised to see that her eyes were wet with tears.

“Will you be my girlfriend?” she asked, and Sephy nodded hard.

“Yes,” she whispered. “Yes, I will.”


	30. Chapter 30

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After saying yes to Clara, Sephy realises just how much she's risking. Should she stay? Does she dare?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> About time, eh?

Clara’s flat was luxurious. Sephy was unsure why this was so surprising to her – by now, if she knew one thing about Clara, it was that image was everything – yet it was still enough to take her breath away as she crossed the threshold. It wasn’t homely; far from it – the entire space seemed designed to be as chic and minimalist as possible, and there were as few traces of human habitation as possible. At a glance, it appeared that nobody lived there at all, until you noted the perfectly-aligned coaster on the corner of the coffee table, the corner of a rug overturned where someone had tripped over it, and the edge of a scarf peeking from what was, Sephy assumed, a concealed cupboard.

“It’s…” she looked around at the monochromatic colour palette, the enormous windows, and the sparseness of it all, and tried to reconcile it with the warm, passionate woman at her side. “…nice.”

“It’s what was expected of me,” Clara said with a dismissive shrug, shifting her weight so that she was leaning more completely against Sephy and struggling to take off her coat with one arm. “It’s not really very me, but it’ll do.”

“Why didn’t you redecorate?” Sephy asked, helping her partner remove her outer layers and then discarding them over the back of a nearby chair, before walking Clara over to the sofa and settling her on the grey cushions with care. “Make it a bit less… stark?”

“I never thought I’d be here for long,” Clara sighed, looking around and running a hand through her hair. “But then things got… complicated, and I didn’t have the energy or the money or the time to move. Plus, it’s convenient; good transport, nice views, and it’s impressive. Or so I’ve been told.”

“It’s… a bit bleak.”

Clara laughed, but her expression was tinged with sadness. “I suppose it is, yes.”

“It’s not very you.”

“It was fitting, for a few years. For the bad years. I didn’t want warmth and comfort for a while, so this suited me fine.”

Sephy resisted the urge to ask why; she wasn’t sure, in light of all that had happened earlier that evening, whether she could stand to hear Clara talking about her father, and she had little doubt that he would have played at least some small part in Clara’s emotional distress and self-imposed punishment. She knew enough about Clara now to know that she had a strange sense of masochism; that she felt that when she did wrong or hurt others, she deserved to suffer. She was sure that even now, in response to her earlier tears, Clara would still feel a degree of culpability, and she resolved not to leave her alone, unwilling as she was to allow Clara to engage in self-injurious behaviours, either physically or emotionally. With that in mind, she plonked herself down beside Clara and took her hand, allowing their fingers to mesh together and feeling some of the tension leave her muscles.

“How are you feeling?” she asked, scooting closer to Clara.

“Mm,” Clara closed her eyes, curling into her side and yawning widely. “Sleepy.”

“So sleep,” Sephy said quietly, settling an arm around Clara’s shoulders protectively. “I’m not going anywhere. Do you have a blanket? Anything warm? I don’t want you getting cold.”

“In my room,” Clara mumbled, her eyes already falling closed. “Blankets…”

Sephy carefully repositioned Clara and got to her feet, wandering off in search of Clara’s bedroom and the promised blankets. She tried three doors before chancing upon the right one, and she smiled as she found that the room itself lacked much of the clinical coldness of the flat’s reception rooms. One wall was painted a rich, warm shade of navy, and there was a vase of white and pink flowers on the dressing table that filled the room with their scent. Framed on one wall was an illustration that Sephy dimly recognised, and stepping closer, she realised it was one of her father’s clothing designs – nothing extravagant, but cleanly drawn and coloured, and framed with the utmost care. Something about it made her eyes fill with tears again, and so she busied herself with hunting through cupboards in search of blankets, locating them in the top of a wardrobe full of unworn designer clothes that still had the tags on. Extracting a soft grey blanket, she padded back to the lounge on silent feet, finding Clara where she had left her and deeply asleep.

With the utmost care, she spread the blanket over Clara, tucking it around her delicately, and then returned to her seat beside her partner, smiling as Clara turned towards her in her sleep and nuzzled into her side in search of increased physical proximity. She wrapped both arms around her, letting Clara’s head come to rest upon her chest, and then tucked her feet up off the floor, exhaling deeply and trying to calm her racing thoughts.

This was, to some extent, wrong. She knew that, and the presence of the print in the bedroom only reaffirmed this belief. Sephy was aware that she did not know the full truth of whatever had occurred between Clara and her father, but she could sense the truth in what Clara had told her – nothing improper had happened, and he had been nothing more than a mentor and a close friend. And yet something weighed on Sephy’s mind; the elephant in the room – why had Clara broken away from her father all those years before? Why had she left his company to start her own; why had she forsaken him? That was surely indicative of… well, _something_ , but as to what that was, Sephy could only speculate.

Perhaps there had been a love affair? Perhaps there had been something, _anything_ , but to ask might spark questions about her interest in the matter, and even if she wanted to, asking River was not a viable option either. She and Jenny had been shielded from the ins and outs of her father and River’s separation, and even now the reasons behind it remained an embargoed subject; never to be raised, never to be discussed, never to be questioned. River and her father had fallen out of love – that was the official line, although it was patently obvious to Sephy that River had never faltered or ceased in her love for John, which meant that the breakdown of love could only have been from his side. Sephy wasn’t a fool, and she knew that to fall out of love was a sad inevitability in relationships, and yet from her vantage point, River appeared blameless. To fall out of love with a woman like River was to fall out of love with the sun, such was the fervour with which she loved; Sephy had witnessed firsthand the intensity with which her stepmother cared for her and Jenny when she had strode into schools and workplaces and shouted at teachers, bosses, colleagues, friends, rivals on their behalf; there was no-one she would not chastise if she felt that her daughters had been wronged.

It was strange, now, for Sephy to think that once there had been a time when she had been someone else’s daughter. Her recollections of her own mother were murky; hazy; clouded by the sudden and violent end she had met. There had been speculation, afterwards, about whether it had been deliberate; speculation that Sephy had not been meant to hear, and while she would always love her mother, there was a lingering undercurrent of anger that her mother might have chosen to leave her; might have chosen to depart the planet and leave Sephy alone with a father who had a singular, burning ambition that blinded him to the needs of his bereaved daughter.

She had loathed River at first; loathed the woman who seemed to want to replace her mother. And yet now… now she could not imagine a world without her; now she could not fathom being exiled from the anchor-point that was River’s home, full of love and laughter and the people she loved. She still remembered the first time she had held Jenny; how much she had wanted to dislike her; afraid the infant might draw what little of her father’s attention that Sephy felt was rightfully hers. And yet the first time the tiny, slumbering baby was placed in her arms, she had felt nothing but a fierce sense of love and protectiveness, and that sentiment continued to this day; she still recalled, with razor-sharp clarity, lambasting Jenny’s teenage boyfriend when it had transpired that he had been romancing three of her classmates at the same time. She supposed she ought to feel guilty at the thought of it; a grown woman shouting at a seventeen-year-old, and yet all she felt, still, was that she had done the right thing.

Sephy looked over at Clara, asleep in her arms, and felt a pang of self-loathing. If River were to know about this, she would lose everything. She would be a stranger to the family home; banished from the warmth and safety of the trifecta that was the three of them. She would be excommunicated and loathed; it had been bad enough when she had entered Clara’s employ, but the prospect of her being in Clara’s bed and in her heart would surely be too much. Whatever had transpired, all those years before, it had instilled River with a deep-rooted hatred of the designer that would surely counter any familial warmth she felt towards Sephy; this relationship could be the dynamite that brought the family to its knees. She was selfish, she knew that, and yet there was something about Clara that she couldn’t help loving. She understood, now, why her father had been so entranced by her, and wondered whether it was a conscious ability that Clara had; the power to bewitch.

Could she do this? Should she do this? She had committed to a path of action now, and she knew what the cost would be to Clara if she backed out now. Sephy knew she could get up and leave; she could flee and not come back; but both options seemed so intolerably cruel as to be anathema to her, who rejected them both outright. Not only was she needed here, but her heart belonged here; she had come to care for Clara in a way that she knew she could not simply switch on and off, and truthfully, she did not want to. This relationship would mean embarking on a course of deception that would surely shatter her world if the truth ever came to light, and yet perhaps – just perhaps – she could warm River up to the idea of Clara; could get her used to their friendship, and then reveal, sometime down the line, the truth of their relationship. Perhaps, too, she could reveal to Clara who she was, but not yet – time needed to pass to assure Clara of the authenticity of their relationship, so that if her true identity ever came to light, there could be no accusations of revenge or deception; no accusations that she was simply going through the motions.

Because she wasn’t; that was the simple fact of the matter – she had come to care for Clara, in a way that she hesitated to yet define as love, and yet was slowly but surely developing into something dangerously akin to it. This broken, fragile spirit in her arms inspired an affection in her so intense it frightened her, and the desire to protect her from the world – from her critics, from her rivals, from those who simply wished her ill – was strong, pulsing through her with each beat of her heart. Clara was imperfect, certainly, but almost perfectly so, and there was something about the contrast of the image she presented to the world and the true, vulnerable person below the surface that made Sephy feel privileged to know her and privileged to be trusted with the truth of Clara’s real nature.

“Sephy?” Clara breathed in her sleep, burrowing her face into Sephy and pulling the blanket up over her head, and Sephy felt a rush of love for her. She adjusted the blanket with care, allowing her hands to settle in Clara’s hair, still stiff and sticky with hairspray from the show, and wondered at how far they had come in an afternoon. The show felt like a lifetime ago; receiving River and Jenny’s congratulatory texts seemed days ago, not hours, and lying to them about where she was after the live feed cut away from Clara’s sudden collapse was… well, that was something she would need to address, but not tonight. Tonight, she was needed here, body and mind, and she cuddled into the woman in her arms, trying to disengage from the storm of worries that filled her mind.


	31. Chapter 31

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Never, ever Google yourself.

“This is boring,” Clara announced over breakfast the next morning. She was safely ensconced in bed, a tray bearing croissants, a pot of jam and a tub of butter balanced on her knees, and there was a steaming mug of coffee on the bedside table beside her, and yet she still had the unavoidable feeling that something was missing. Sephy was sat on her own side of the bed – because apparently, already, they had fallen into having sides – reading something on her phone, and yet she still felt as though there was something wanting. “I’m bored.”

“Glad to know my company is so diverting,” Sephy said coolly from beside her, taking a sip of her tea and raising her eyebrows as she flicked her attention over to Clara effortlessly. “I didn’t think you’d be bored of me already.”

“Not _you,”_ Clara rolled her eyes, elbowing her partner in the side and making the tray shake as she did so. “I’m not bored of you. I’ll never get bored of you.”

“That’s a bold assertion to make,” Sephy said, her tone light, but Clara could sense the fear that simmered beneath the surface of the quip as she continued: “You might.”

“It seems unlikely.”

“You probably thought it was unlikely you’d get bored of Danny.” Sephy’s tone reminded jovial, but there was a stinging hurt that laced its way through the words, turning them into something akin to an accusation that Clara felt an immediate need to counter.

“That was different.”

“How?”

“I…” Clara blinked hard, wrong-footed by the question. “Sephy, it just was. Everything about that was different; he was a different person to you. I’m not going to get bored of you.”

“You _just_ said you were bored.”

“Of being on enforced bed rest, not of you,” Clara reached over and laid her hand over Sephy’s, giving it a reassuring little squeeze. “Being stuck in one place is very much not my thing.”

“I just…” Sephy dithered for a moment, then said in a hot, embarrassed rush: “I just feel… I don’t know. I’m not interesting or exciting or famous.”

“I think you’re interesting, and exciting. And I don’t want famous; I don’t want that degree of scrutiny, because frankly, it’s exhausting and I don’t want to have to deal with it. You’re perfect who and how you are, so I don’t want you thinking that you’re not good enough, or anything else. I want you. I’m not certain of much at the moment, but I’m certain of you.”

Sephy smiled shyly, her cheeks flushing a delicate shade of pink. “Really?”

“Yes, really,” Clara said emphatically. “You are not Danny, and I am not…”

“Martha,” Sephy murmured. “My last… her name was Martha. Four years, but she went off travelling, and that was that.”

“Well, I _can’t_ exactly go off travelling, so you’re safe in that regard,” Clara teased. “And if I do, you’ll be coming with me.”

“You won’t be doing any travelling unless you listen to the doctors and continue to get bed rest for a few days.”

“But it’s _boring_ ,” Clara complained in a petulant tone. “I’m not even twenty-four hours in and I’m _bored_.”

“I mean…” Sephy adopted a thoughtful expression. “We could really break the rules and move you to the sofa. How about that for rebelling against the system?”

“Bed is comfier.”

“You seemed happy enough to fall asleep on the sofa last night.”

“Yes, because you were on it with me.”

“Ah, so if I moved to the sofa, would it become more attractive?”

“Absolutely.”

“Right,” Sephy grinned. “So, finish your breakfast, and then we’ll decant to the sofa and watch terrible films on Netflix.”

Clara shoved a chunk of croissant in her mouth obediently, following it up with a swig of coffee, and as she did so, a thought occurred to her. She swallowed with some difficulty, gesticulating as she did so to her bedside table.

“Can you…” she mumbled, her mouth still half-full. “There’s… iPad…”

Sephy opened several of the drawers at random, finally retrieving the desired iPad and handing it over.

Clara swallowed again as she switched the tablet on, unlocking it and opening Safari. Her hands shook as she typed in her name, her heartrate starting to accelerate, but before she could press ‘go’, the device was snatched out of her hands.

“I’m not letting you get yourself in a state,” Sephy said firmly, affixing Clara with a stern expression. “Absolutely no chance. You’ll get upset and if I have to phone an ambulance for you or take you back to hospital, you’re just going to get pissed off and complain.”

“ _More_ pissed off, and complain _more_.”

“Don’t be flippant.”

“Come on,” Clara wheedled. “Just one article. I just want to know what they thought. Especially Anna Fucking Murphy from the _Times_.”

“Well, if you want to see that, you either have to pay to read it online or I’ll have to go out and buy the bloody thing. Either way, you’ve got to give them money, which is… not an appealing prospect.”

“I’ve got a subscription,” Clara admitted in a small voice, her cheeks burning at the confession. “It was getting too annoying having to buy the bloody paper edition every day just to read the Arts section. Do you know how many thousands of pages it is? It’s like _War and Peace_.”

“You dark horse, you,” Sephy said with a grin. “Fine.”

She pressed ‘go’ without warning, then turned the screen away from Clara and scrolled for a short while.

“Well?” Clara asked, chewing on her lip. Her hands were shaking, so she clenched them on her lap, determined not to betray to Sephy precisely how worried she was about the critics’ opinions of her show.

“Interesting,” Sephy said neutrally. “Very, very interesting.”

“What is?”

“This article.”

“Interesting how?” Clara’s voice was small and frightened, but she no longer cared. Panic was rising in her like a tide, compressing her lungs uncomfortably and making her heartrate spiral out of control. This couldn’t be good for her, surely? This suspense was physically painful, and she was on the verge of snatching the iPad when Sephy began to read.

“‘It was surprising to myself – and my colleagues here at _The Times_ – when I received an invitation to Clara Oswald’s 2018 Spring/Summer show at London Fashion Week. There was some derision and disbelief amongst my team that such an invitation would be extended to me following last year’s brutally terrible offering, and following my ensuing scathing review outlining the flaws with Oswald’s dull use of colour and fabric, I was certain that I would be uninvited from all future events at which the designer was showing. Frankly, the prospect of such a disinvitation was cheering; each moment spent sat among bored-looking models wearing uninspiring designs was a moment I could’ve been attending a show by a designer of real merit and vision.’”

“Excuse me,” Clara scowled. “Why are you telling me this? This isn’t encouraging. She’s a bitch. This is not news.”

Sephy only grinned mysteriously, then continued.

“‘Nonetheless, I decided to take up the mantle and attend this year’s offering. If nothing else, I was certain that my reports on the show would provide amusement to my colleagues and readers, and perhaps I could’ve written something so polarising, that I would not only be uninvited from all future events, but banned.’”

“Consider it done,” Clara muttered. “Twat.”

“‘Imagine, then, my surprise when a beautiful, enlivened-looking model who appeared refreshingly full of life opened the show by striding down the catwalk in a truly inspired piece of couture that can only be described as art. Alight with bold colours and patterns, the likes of which Oswald has not used since 2014, the new collection crackles with energy and a fresh, exciting new vibe that seems to be the heralding of a new era. There was a divine range of dresses that I will be looking out for when they move to her ready-to-wear collection, each in a different hue of cerise, navy, forest green or mustard yellow, and each imbued with such lightness that the models appeared to be wearing a cloud. Oswald’s instinctual grasp of shape, texture, and colour, which for so long was absent from her work, has returned full-force, and she is a force to be reckoned with. There are whispers in the industry of Oswald’s new muse, and if those rumours are to be believed then that muse was the model I saw open the show. Persephone Lautrec, thirty-five, is an artist who specialises in bright, bold pieces, and it would appear that her influence has inspired Oswald to experiment outside the norm, and the risk has paid off.’”

“Oh,” Clara said in shock, feeling awe settle over her. “I…”

“‘Further honourable mention should be made of Ryan Sinclair, a young up-and-coming model from Sheffield who has remained largely ignored by the fashion industry until now. Unafraid to subvert gender norms, Oswald garbed him in floor-length skirts and floral tops, all of which Sinclair wore with an effortless grace and ease that emphasised the increasing gender fluidity of couture. Unruffled and confident in Oswald’s clothes, Sinclair underlined to me the diversity and versatility of the new collection, not to mention encouraged me to play further with gender roles in my own wardrobe decisions.’”

“You’re making this up,” Clara said weakly. “Right? You’re making this up. She can’t have been this nice.”

“Oh, it gets better.”

“It… does?”

“’The collection is a sparkling, explosive triumph, underpinned by a superbly sartorial choice of models and a refusal to conform to the norms of masculinity or femininity. Lautrec shone in a brightly-patterned trouser suit that I am feeling particularly covetous of, and as I write this, our department are currently on hold to the designer’s office in a bid to track it down,’” she paused. “Bitch, she’s not having my suit.”

“No, she’s not.”

“‘The only slight blemish of the face of the show came at the climax of the event; when faced with a standing ovation, Oswald appeared overcome with emotion and collapsed to the stage. Such a sense of overwhelm is understandable in this instance; with such a glittering return to the apex of the fashion industry, it is little surprise that Oswald found such newly-attained heights dizzying, and the metaphorical altitude must have proved intoxicating. I know I am not alone in wishing her all the best and every success for the future – not least because I am full of a desperate yearning to commission several pieces, and my editor has a burning passion to feature Oswald for an editorial at her earliest convenience. Five stars.’” 

“Fuck off,” Clara said in disbelief. “Fuck off, it doesn’t actually say that.”

“It does,” Sephy assured her, holding out the tablet. “Really. It does.”

“The _Times_ want me for an editorial?” Clara all but snatched the iPad in her haste. “You’re making that up.”

She looked down at the screen, scrolling the article back to the top and beginning to scan through it. With each sentence, she felt her amazement grow; it was all there, word for word, exactly as Sephy had reported it to her. Anna Murphy liked the collection. She wanted to purchase items. She wanted to _commission_ items. And the _Times_ , it would seem, really did want her for an editorial. She couldn’t allow herself to get her hopes up, though; it would be cruel to allow herself to do so and then have it snatched away.

“It must just be her,” she forced herself to say breezily, heading back to Google and selecting another article at random. “It can’t be…”

But as her eyes ran down the second review, she found similarly glowing praise, and further words of congratulations were emphasised in the third review, and the fourth.

“Well?” Sephy asked quietly, a smile playing around her features. “Is it just her?”

“No, it’s… it’s everyone, it’s… it’s…” she didn’t have the words to express her elation, and so she simply put the iPad down and stared ahead of her numbly, trying to grasp what this meant. There would be an uptick in interest and sales; there would be articles and features on her; there would be demand for her work for the first time in years. She would be back on the exclusive fashion guestlists she had long since been banished from thanks to her perceived dullness and drudgery; she would no longer be fodder for columnists to mock. “I don’t… this is… it can’t be happening.”

“Well, it appears to be happening,” Sephy beamed. “So, you can get excited now.”

“It doesn’t feel real…” Clara mumbled. “This is all just a dream, surely? I’m going to wake up and they’re all going to have hated it and think I’m a washed-up has-been.”

“It’s real,” Sephy tipped her a wink. “Want me to pinch you?”

“No!” Clara squealed, as her partner reached over the bed with her fingers formed into pincers. Catching her hands, she gave them a loving squeeze. “This was you. This was all you; you being you and inspiring me and just… god, I don’t have the words to say everything I want to say, or everything I need to say.”

“You don’t need to say anything.”

“But I do,” Clara kissed her, catching her off-guard, and she felt Sephy smile into the kiss before she pulled away. “Thank you. A thousand, thousand times. Thank you.”


	32. Chapter 32

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clara allows her fears to get the better of her.

Clara was, due to sheer necessity, inherently suspicious of happiness. It made her nervous, as though there were some dreadful spectre waiting just around the corner, poised to shatter all that brought her joy or comfort. There was the constant, omnipresent fear that something would happen – a word would be said, a discovery would be made, or a thing would be done – and everything would be snatched away from her, and this thought began to weigh on her every waking hour, niggling at the edges of her consciousness and filling her with a dreadful, lingering sense of paranoia. Surely Sephy would see through her eventually? Surely she would realise what a terrible, misinformed choice she had made in deciding to be with Clara? Eventually, the stars would fall from her eyes and she would leave, as so many before her had done the same, and then Clara would find herself in her natural state – alone, and forced to pretend to be happy about it.

“What’s wrong?” Sephy asked one morning, perched at the opposite end of the sofa and eating a croissant with fastidious care over a black-and-white patterned plate. As she spoke, a shower of crumbs snowed down onto the porcelain, and she grimaced.

Clara jumped, her coffee almost spilling over her hand as she snapped her attention back to the present and looked over at Sephy with wide-eyed bafflement. “What?”

“You’re doing a weird look.”

“I am not.”

“You are.”

“Am not.”

“Are!”

“What kind of weird look?” Clara asked, narrowing her eyes suspiciously.

“You look…” Sephy hesitated for a moment, mopping up the remains of the jam on her plate with her croissant, then shoving it into her mouth and chewing thoughtfully before continuing: “Whenever you think I’m not looking, you look sad.”

“No, I don’t,” Clara said much too quickly, taking a swig of coffee and burning the inside of her mouth. “I don’t.”

“You do,” Sephy said quietly, setting her plate down. “You were doing it just now; you looked… I don’t know. Scared. Are you scared of me?”

“No,” Clara shot back at once, shaking her head emphatically. “No, never.”

“So, what are you scared of? Don’t try to tell me you aren’t, because I’ve seen you do that face for the last few days and you’re very obviously scared of something, so don’t try to bullshit me.”

“It’s not…” Clara began, unsure how to explain herself, and instead taking another swig of coffee, albeit a more careful one. “I’m not scared of anything _tangible_.”

“Alright, hit me with your metaphysical fears then.”

“It’s…” she looked down at her lap, examining her nails with concerted interest. “It’s not… I don’t know how to explain it without sounding ridiculous, but I’m so happy that I’m scared.”

“Why does being happy make you scared?” Sephy asked quietly, her voice devoid of any judgement. “Why does it frighten you so much that you look terrified all of the time when you think I’m not looking?”

“Because… happiness doesn’t last,” Clara felt her voice beginning to crack, and she swallowed thickly, determined not to cry in front of Sephy. “Nothing lasts. I thought my childhood was a happy one; I thought it would just be the three of us, forever and ever, and nothing could touch us in our shiny, perfect bubble, but then… Mum got ill. And then Mum got iller, and iller, and iller, and then… that was that. Pop. Happiness gone. I tried to run away from it; I went to university, I became John’s protégée, and then that… well, that all went downhill, and pop, that bubble popped, and it was over too. I tried to find happiness with lots of different people, and all of them didn’t want me, because there was too much weight; too much baggage; too much emotional shit for them to deal with. Pop, pop, pop. Each happy, shiny relationship bubble burst, some more spectacularly than the last.”

“In what sense?”

“Oh, some of them did their fair amount of damage on the way out, in more ways than one,” Clara smiled fleetingly; barely more than a quick turning-up of her lips, but she could see that Sephy was unconvinced by the gesture. “Harsh but fair words; character assassinations; the odd thrown possession. I’ve learnt to dodge, in more ways than one.”

“Do you think I’m going to throw things at you?” Sephy asked in a subdued voice, curling her legs up underneath her and hugging a pillow to her chest. “Do you think I’m going to say horrible things, or pick you to shreds?”

“I don’t know,” Clara admitted, her voice little more than a whisper. “Maybe? The last person who I let in said the same, and he… he got bored of me. He saw me for what I was, and he left.”

“And what are you? Supposedly?” Sephy’s words were level, measured, and unwavering, and Clara wondered how she could be so calm. “Tell me.”

“I’m…” Clara’s voice cracked completely. “Selfish. Hedonistic. Impetuous. Bossy. A control freak. Egotistical. Single-minded.”

“No,” Sephy shook her head, giving a dismissive little snort. “No, I reject that outright.”

“So did the others.”

“I wouldn’t say you were any of those things. I’d say you had a strong sense of self-preservation, perhaps, which comes from your experiences of life, and that you seek pleasure or happiness to try and avoid things that scare you. But you aren’t bossy, or a control freak; you’re motivated and driven, and that’s not a bad thing, because you wouldn’t be where you are if you weren’t those things. As for egotistical… I think you’ve learnt that you’re the only person you can count on, so you’ve made yourself the centre of your universe due to sheer necessity, but that doesn’t mean you’re selfish, or anything else. You’ve shown me a huge amount of compassion and care – I’ve never had anyone design a collection for me before, and that wasn’t a selfish thing. That wasn’t egotistical. That was you, doing something compassionate. You, being kind. You, showing love. So I reject your adjectives outright.”

“I’m just…”

“Repeating what you’ve been told?”

“Yeah.”

“But do you believe it?” Sephy asked, meeting Clara’s gaze, and Clara gasped at the sincerity she saw burning within her partner’s expression. “Do you believe those words? Because I think you do, and I think that’s why you’re frightened; because you’ve internalised every word.”

“I…” Clara felt her eyes fill with tears, and she turned her face away, humiliated. “Yes.”

“I’m not going to do say any of those things about you,” Sephy promised quietly. “I promise you that.”

“That... that’s what the last person who broke my heart said,” a single tear escaped from her left eye, rolling down her cheek and dripping onto the arm of the sofa. “And he did. He left.”

“Clara, why would I leave you?”

“Because it’s too much. Because _I’m_ too much; I’m too this or that or the other. The work is too much, _I_ work too much. I’m selfish or I’m rude or I don’t have time for people. You’ll see what I’m really like, and you’ll despise it, and then you’ll leave.”

“What are you really like?”

“All the things I said.”

“And who told you those things?” Sephy asked gently. “Who was it that voiced them aloud?”

“Other people.”

“And you listened to those words,” Sephy moved across the sofa in one lithe, agile movement, placing herself by Clara’s side. “And you took them into your heart, and you started to believe them. You let yourself be controlled by them, because as you believed that they applied to you, so you probably started to act as though they did; a self-fulfilling prophecy.”

“How…”

“I’m not going to use those words,” Sephy vowed, placing an arm around Clara’s waist. She froze for a moment, unsure how to respond, and then melted into the touch, resting her head against Sephy’s shoulder and closing her eyes tightly. “I’m not going to use them, which means I’m not going to let you fall into patterns of behaviour which might push me away, because you aren’t any of those things. The people who wanted you to be those things didn’t understand you, and they didn’t want to. They wanted excuses; they wanted get-outs. They didn’t want to stay, because staying might mean emotional labour.”

“What about you? Will you stay?” Clara mumbled. “Do you promise to stay?”

“Of course I promise to stay,” Sephy murmured reassuringly, pressing a kiss to Clara’s temple, and she felt some of her fear and uncertainty melt away in that instant. “I mean, that isn’t to say I won’t find you really annoying sometimes. I might hate the way you load the dishwasher, or how long you take to get ready in the morning. You might find me singing in the shower irritating, or you might think I’ve been a bit of a prat for doing this or that – or vice versa. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to leave. It doesn’t mean you’re going to leave either. That’s not to say that if either of us does something unforgiveable then we have to stay, but it’s not going to be a case of a silly little argument meaning the end.”

“How did I…” Clara began, but she couldn’t manage any further words. She closed her eyes and curled into Sephy, scooting over onto her lap and feeling her partner’s arms encircle her gently. She felt safe here; she realised. With Sephy, she felt as though she were safe for the first time in a long time, and while it did not fully negate her fear of something – anything – going wrong, and this all coming to a crashing, bitter end, she felt some of her worries alleviate, and some of the weight lift from her chest. She nuzzled into Sephy’s shoulder, clinging to her like a lifeline, and tried to tell herself that there was no reason to be afraid any longer, and yet letting go of her fear completely proved almost impossible. It was so ingrained in her to be afraid of rejection that the constant ebb and flow of her own panic was a familiar undercurrent to her daily thoughts now, and even now, safely ensconced in Sephy’s arms, she could feel the insistent tug of her anxieties. Despite all of Sephy’s words, she still felt a degree of uncertainty about the future, but she tried her best to ignore it; tried to focus on the sound of her own heart, racing in her ears, and the sound of Sephy’s breathing as they embraced.

“Still scared?” Sephy asked quietly, as though reading her thoughts, and Clara gave a curt little nod. “That’s OK. It’s OK to be scared still; after all, you’ve learnt to be scared, and now you have to unlearn that. But it’s alright. It’s going to be OK. I promise you now, it’s going to be alright, and you can do this. Whatever happens, I’ll be right here by your side.”

“Even if I’m really annoying?”

“Even if you’re really annoying.”

“Even if I make you wear horrible clothes?”

“Even if you make me wear horrible clothes.”

“Glad we’ve got that sorted,” Clara mumbled. “Reassures me about the next collection.”

“Easy, tiger,” Sephy teased. “You’ve barely finished this one.”

“Time and fashion wait for no woman,” Clara said seriously, looking up at Sephy with a mischievous grin. “We need the next big thing.”

“And where are we going to find that?” Sephy arched an eyebrow delicately. “And who might they be? Because I’m not giving you up that easily.”

“You are undoubtedly the next big thing,” Clara reassured her with a deadpan expression. “I just… might need some new material. Metaphorically and literally.”

“Such as?”

Clara kissed her gently, placing her hand on Sephy’s cheek and then pulling away with the utmost reluctance. “That sort of new material.”

“I didn’t know you were doing a collection on kissing.”

“I could do,” Clara grinned. “Or lingerie-inspired.”

“You are never getting me in lingerie,” Sephy wrinkled her nose. “It’s very much not-me.”

“I’m sure I could design some that was,” Clara tipped her a wink. “And I’m sure I could make you model it too, just maybe… not out there,” she gestured to the window. “Maybe just in here.”

“That’s a better plan,” Sephy hummed, kissing her again. “Can it be multi-coloured?”

“Absolutely,” Clara concurred, turned her head to the side and letting Sephy kiss languidly down her neck. “You know, we might need to leave the flat eventually… nice though this is…”

“What did you have in mind?” Sephy asked, resting her forehead against Clara’s. “Tesco trip?”

“How about something a little more upmarket?”


	33. Chapter 33

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At a party, some unsavoury elements of Clara's past come to light. Can Sephy move past them?

As it transpired, Clara’s idea of ‘something a little more upmarket’ was in, fact, a party. She’d been vague about the details when she’d extended the invitation to Sephy – something about the end of Fashion Week, and some mumbled words like ‘celebs’ were featured – but Sephy had gone along with it nonetheless, more out of curiosity than anything else. She’d wanted to see how the other half lived; wanted to see the world that Clara inhabited when she was fulfilling the role of successful designer and tabloid wild-child. She’d allowed Clara to do her hair and makeup and squeeze her into a dress that was bordering on uncomfortably short, and now they were at the home of… well, Clara had been less than forthcoming with the name of the owner, but Sephy suspected they were some sort of industry bigwig.

The house itself was, even to Sephy’s artistic eye, extremely ostentatious. On the edges of the city, the walls were made almost entirely of glass, and undulated and curved softly in patterns that put you in mind of natural, organic forms, rippling as though stirred by a soft breeze. There were expanses of deep, rich wood that contrasted with stark marble and chrome fittings, and the room in which they were currently ensconced – some kind of lounge-cum-recreation room – was furnished with grey sofas and low black side tables, upon which were extravagant, animal-shaped lamps whose light cast the room into disconcerting golden shadows. Their reflections stared back at them from the glass wall opposite where they were sat, and an imitation fire flickered merrily in a grate behind them, casting a golden glow over a luxurious white faux-fur rug that lay before it. It was all very beautiful, and undoubtedly very expensive, but to Sephy it was more like a show home than a place where people actually lived; it felt as though it belonged in a museum, or in an exhibition dedicated to design, and it lacked the usual warmth and personal touches that could usually be expected of a residence. There were no framed photographs or knick-knacks; no books or DVDs; no signs of habitation at all. It was all very beautiful, but very clinical.

Beside her, Clara laughed in response to something her conversation partner had said and tossed her hair over her shoulder, taking a long sip of her wine as she chatted to someone that Sephy vaguely recalled having seen on social media. Clara was speaking in a concertedly upper class tone that was entirely unlike her usual accent, and Sephy resisted the urge to roll her eyes as her partner gave another high, unnatural laugh and flicked her hair again. Her companion, as though sensing Sephy’s irritation, murmured a quiet apology and then got to her feet and sauntered out of the room, and Clara turned her attention back to Sephy.

“She wants a dress for her engagement party next month,” Clara said brightly, the upper class accent remaining as she beamed at Sephy with wide-eyed excitement. “And she wants me to do it for her.”

“Great,” Sephy said flatly, finding herself irrationally irked by both the accent and the silly, contrived, girlish manner in which Clara had been behaving. “That’s great.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Sephy said in a low voice, shooting a warning look over at the small knot of women who were seated on the sofa opposite them. “Nothing at all.”

“Why are you being weird?”

“ _I’m_ being weird?” Sephy snorted, continuing in an undertone: “Why are you talking like that? Why are you giggling and hair-flicking like a teenage girl?”

“I’m not,” Clara said, her expression hurt, and the accent slipped away as she continued: “I’m not. Am I?”

“A little. What, do you think they won’t still be interested in ordering pieces if you’re Clara-From-Blackpool and not Clara-Who-May-Have-Gone-To-Prep-School?”

“It’s what I need to do to blend in,” Clara hissed, knocking back the rest of her glass of wine and affixing Sephy with a scowl. “I don’t see why it’s such a problem.”

“Because you’re being something you’re not?” Sephy noted in a flat voice. “Because you’re pretending to be someone else to make them like you?”

She was aware of the hypocrisy of her words even as she said them; aware of the great secret that she was hiding. And yet seeing Clara play up to others like this; seeing her make herself smaller and less of a threat to their cosy little world – it made her feel embarrassed for her partner, and angry towards those who, in the past, must have rendered her so self-conscious that she now felt the need to play a part.

“Oh, you wouldn’t understand,” Clara snapped, slamming down her glass and getting to her feet with tangible irritation. “Do you want another drink?”

“I thought the agreement was-”

“Oh, fuck the agreement,” Clara muttered sourly, and stalked off towards the kitchen, and the exceptionally well-curated drinks bar that lay within.

“Clara,” Sephy said with a sigh, getting to her feet and starting after her as Clara stormed from the room. “Clara, come on, I just…”

“Just what?” Clara asked, turning to face her with a scowl. “Want to interfere?”

“No, I just don’t like to see you making yourself into something you’re not, just because you’re worried they might not like you.”

“That’s not… I don’t…” Clara’s scowl only deepened. “I’m not."

“You are.”

“Am not.”

“Are.”

Without warning, Clara pushed her back into the icy glass wall of the hallway and kissed her fiercely before pulling away and smirking at Sephy’s breathlessness. “Am not.”

“You can’t use snogging as a distraction,” Sephy managed, although her head was reeling from the sudden change in Clara’s mood.

“Why? It works, doesn’t it?” Clara’s smirk intensified, but she remained where she was, her hands either side of Sephy’s waist, keeping her pinned against the wall. “And it could be much worse; I could tell you what I was thinking about doing to you on that rug.”

“That…”

“Please, the faux-fur one by the fire. Like you weren’t thinking about it too.”

“Thinking about what?”

“How soft it would feel if I laid you down on it and… well, I’ll let you fill in the rest with your imagination.”

Sephy felt her cheeks burn in the semi-darkness of the corridor. “There were other people present!”

“Well, I’m sure they wouldn’t have complained.”

“You’re a very bad girl.”

“So, spank-”

“Clara?”

The two of them broke apart at the sudden interruption, Sephy swallowing thickly as she smoothed down her barely-there dress and Clara continuing to smirk. Yvonne Hartman was approaching them with an eyebrow raised, and as she looked between the two of them, the penny visibly dropped.

“Well, well, well,” she said, a nasty undertone to her voice. “Really, Clara? Another model?”

“Sephy isn’t like-”

“I’ve heard it all before,” Yvonne interjected, waving a hand dismissively. “Really, I’d have thought you’d have moved past this silliness. We both know how it ends.”

“Sephy isn’t-” Clara began again, but Yvonne only rolled her eyes.

“Yes, yes, I’ve heard that before,” she tutted. “Really, Sephy, I hope you know what you’re getting yourself in for. You’ll be dragging her home from this party; I hope you know that. She’ll be paralytic by four am, and for heaven’s sake…” Yvonne lowered her voice conspiratorially and stage-whispered: “Don’t let her know about the Charlie that Christi de Souza is handing out in the bathroom.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Clara snarled, taking a step towards Yvonne and clenching her fists at her sides. “What do you know?”

“You, darling,” Yvonne said condescendingly, her voice dripping with malice. “I know you. By the way, if that dress is new season Miu Miu, it makes you look like a storm cloud.”

Yvonne turned on her heel and stalked off, leaving the two women alone.

“Do I really look like a storm cloud?” Clara asked Sephy after a moment, breaking the silence as she smoothed down the artistically-ruffled tiered skirt of her black dress. 

“A bit, yeah,” Sephy frowned, cocking her head to the side as she contemplated the garment. “But in a good way. Have you really done… have you actually… is she serious about… the bathroom?”

“What?” Clara looked up unconcernedly. “About Christi? Yeah, she thinks it’s a good way to win friends. She’s actually just an idiot; she could be making a killing by charging people.”

“ _That_ ’ _s_ the part you’re concerned about?”

“I mean, I’m quite concerned she’s still doing it after her stay at the Priory,” Clara snickered in a distinctly unkind manner. “But yeah, I mean… why hand something out for free when you could be charging people for it? Hello, Capitalism 101.”

“You’re not at all concerned about being at a party where people are handing out free drugs?”

“Not overly, no,” Clara shrugged. “It’s like being a kid and getting a party bag, only instead of a party popper and a pencil and a slice of cake, you get something a bit more… intense.”

“Bloody hell.”

“What, have you not been at parties like this before?” Clara asked, arching an eyebrow. “Come on, you’ve travelled the world and lived a fair bit; surely you’ve been to parties where this sort of thing goes on.”

“I mean, not… literally handing it out in the loos like free hand towels, no.”

“You’ve been mixing with the wrong people.”

“No, I think I’ve been mixing with the _right_ people.”

“Probably a fair point,” Clara noted with a shrug. “Look, if it makes you that uncomfortable, we can leave.”

“I don’t know,” Sephy met Clara’s gaze, her expression steely. “It depends.”

“On?”

“On whether you’re going to go up there and partake.”

“Why the hell would I do that?”

“Yvonne seemed to think you were going to,” Sephy countered. “She seemed really convinced, actually. Seemed to think you wouldn’t be able to avoid the temptation.”

Clara snorted. “Yvonne Hartman has been sticking shit up her nose since the mid 1980s. She just tends to assume that everyone has the same loose morals she does.”

“So you’ve never…”

“I mean, not for a good few years. You lose a lot of time, and you get very boring.”

“Right.”

“And it’s not something I ever really fancy doing again,” Clara admitted with a sigh. “I saw what it did to people I knew, and I realised I was being a fucking idiot, and I haven’t touched it since.”

“Have you touched anything?”

“I don’t want to talk about that.”

“Which isn’t a no.”

“Because it isn’t a no, but that’s in the past now. I was stupid and I was lonely and I thought that I could fill the gap in my life with chemicals and alcohol and somehow make myself feel better. I was wrong.”

“So, if this Christi asked…”

“I’d tell her to fuck off. Besides, her stuff is dreadful. She thinks she’s got this incredibly upmarket dealer who sorts her out with the highest-end gear but I’m about ninety percent sure he’s just selling her icing sugar and she hasn’t noticed.”

Sephy snorted. “How could you fail to notice that?”

“Maybe she has. Maybe she just likes screwing everyone else over. Who knows?” Clara made a face. “Look, I’m not proud of the things I’ve done, but that’s… I don’t want to do that anymore.”

“Says the person who is already slightly drunker than I expected.”

“Oh, yeah, alcohol. Because that’s definitely worse than drugs.”

“Fair point.”

“And I’ve only had two glasses, I’m just a lightweight now,” Clara looked towards the kitchen. “I could murder a soft drink, though.”

“Now _that’s_ a good idea.”

They headed towards the kitchen in unison, stepping into the relative brightness and blinking hard. People were milling around, leaning on worktops and chatting, or pouring themselves drinks from the extensive selection arranged on the island in the middle of the room. As Sephy reached for a nearby bottle of lemonade, Clara was swept into the middle of a group of people, all of whom began to fawn over her dress with a degree of interest that seemed entirely disproportional, and after a moment’s quiet study, her free hand groping around for a clean cup, Sephy realised that the hangers-on had slightly glazed expressions, and suppressed a laugh. She looked down, retrieved two glasses, and filled them with care, but when she looked back up, Clara was gone. The space she had previously inhabited had been taken by an overly-amorous couple who were twined around each other so tightly that Sephy idly wondered how either of them were still managing to breathe, but she tried to put the thought out of her mind as she ambled off in search of her partner, a drink clutched in each hand.

She wandered into an expansive conservatory, the walls of which were lined with abstract erotic art that Sephy shook her head at, and then headed outside into the chill February air, stepping onto the patio and looking over at a group of people who were clustered around a tall heater, their backs to her as they chatted loudly about a mutual friend. There was a strong, sickly smell and she wrinkled her nose in distaste as she identified what it was, but even as she did so, a figure turned away from the group, placing themselves in profile to her as they clicked a silver lighter and raised it to a long, white shape held between their lips.

Sephy’s eyes widened as she recognised Clara, and the cups fell from her hands as she started forwards.

“What the _fuck_ ,” she called loudly. “Do you think you’re doing?”


	34. Chapter 34

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After confronting Clara, Sephy finds herself face to face with a particularly unpleasant partygoer. One who seems very, very interested in her and Clara...

Clara blinked at her with a look of consternation that seemed so laughably over-exaggerated that Sephy almost laughed aloud. Nonetheless, Clara took the offending item out of her mouth and clicked the lighter shut, giving a casual shrug as she did so that only served to add insult to injury.

“Having a smoke,” she hazarded, twirling the item between her fingers as she looked over at Sephy with a combination of irritation and bemusement. “What does it look like?”

“Like…” Sephy took a few steps closer, stepping into the warmth being radiated by the patio heater. “Like you’re having a smoke, yeah, but not of the tobacco variety.”

Clara let out a snort of derision that struck Sephy like a physical blow. “You really think I’d be that stupid? After everything I’ve just said?”

“Yeah,” Sephy shot back, narrowing her eyes suspiciously and feeling anger flare in her stomach. If Clara was going to talk to her in such a condescending manner, then she could absolutely return the favour. “Yeah, I do. After everything you’ve just disclosed to me, why wouldn’t I have cause to think you’re that stupid? You used to stick shit up your nose and take who knows what from who knows who; I wouldn’t put it past you to give this a go as well. That is… if you haven’t already. I’m sure you have, given your extensive experience in the field.”

“What did I _just_ tell you?” Clara looked at her with incredulity, some of the defensiveness and condescension leaving her tone. “I _just_ told you that I’m not interested in that kind of thing anymore, and now you’re attacking me over something that _you’ve got the wrong end of the stick on._ ”

“Why should I-”

A man stepped into the amber glow of the patio heater, his face contorted into a patronising sneer. He had close-cropped dirty blonde hair, a matching goatee, and he was wearing a suit with a white shirt and no tie in a manner that gave off a concerted effort of disdain. As he drew nearer to the heater, Sephy realised that he had eyeliner on, the kohl artistically smudged in an attempt to come off as uncaring or effortless, but combined with the suit, it only served to come across as somewhat desperate.

“Oh, she’s cute,” he said to Clara, speaking as though Sephy weren’t there and using a tone that suggested that Sephy might be a particularly sweet animal he had happened upon. “She’s a really cute one. Very pretty. What is she, your minder?”

“Fuck off, Harry,” Clara snapped without looking at him, her eyes locked on Sephy. “This is none of your business.”

“Hold on,” the stranger took a step closer to Sephy, and she resisted the urge to take a step away from him. His very being oozed malice and contempt, and he looked her up and down as though she were a piece of meat. “Isn’t this the pretty one from your show? _Loving_ the accent. It’s such a shame we don’t see models speaking much… although I’m not complaining. I tend to make sure that they’re using their mouths for other things.”

Sephy took a deep, fortifying breath, and then held out her hand to the stranger with as much politeness as she could muster. Her skin crawled as he looked down at the proffered hand with lascivious interest. “Persephone Lautrec.”

“Harry Saxon,” he countered, giving her hand a delicate squeeze and then running a fingertip across her palm in an odd, uncomfortably intimate gesture. “I saw you walk for her at Fashion Week. You’re wasted on that dross.”

“She’s not wasted on anything,” Clara snarled from somewhere behind her. “She’s…”

“Yes, yes,” Harry rolled his eyes. “Your _muse_ , I know. Have you got her into bed yet?”

“I am here,” Sephy pointed out. “Right here. I can hear you. And I was trying to have a conversation with my girlfriend.”

“Your…” Harry let out a cackle of glee, and Sephy regretted her words at once. “Oh, bless. Clara Oswald, you dog. You don’t waste any time, do you? Bless her, you’ve actually deluded her into believing that rubbish, have you? God help the poor bitch; does she know she’s in for a miserable time?”

“Harry,” Clara growled, taking a step towards Sephy defensively. “I’d suggest shutting the fuck up.”

“Has she taken you to bed yet?” Harry asked Sephy candidly. “Because if so, I’d like a full blow-by-blow recap, ideally with re-enactm-”

Clara’s fist connected with his solar plexus before anyone had time to react, the blow sending him staggering backwards. He crashed into the table behind him and slumped over it, and there was a moment’s silence as the assembled group of witnesses stood in mute shock before Harry started to laugh breathlessly, his hands coming up to his abdomen and massaging carefully.

“Oh, I knew you had it in you, Oswald,” he managed, straightening up with a leer. He seemed, if anything, to have enjoyed the display of temper. “I always knew there was fire in there somewhere.”

“Fuck off, Harry,” Clara spat, turning and starting to walk back towards the house. As she did so, she reached for Sephy’s hand, and Sephy took it unprotestingly, allowing herself to be led away.

“You didn’t answer,” he called mockingly. “Have you fucked her, or not?”

Sephy felt Clara’s fingers twitch, and gave her hand a warning squeeze. “Don’t,” she murmured quietly. “Just… don’t. Don’t rise to it.”

Clara said nothing, merely clenched her fist within Sephy’s grasp, and they kept walking, stepping back into the house and pausing for a moment in the welcome warmth of the kitchen. Looking around, Sephy was disconcerted to find the scene unchanged from some moments prior, and the discovery was strangely disorientating; these people had no idea of what had just transpired, and probably never would. Well, she supposed; they might – Harry seemed the sort to brag.

“He’s a fucking…” Clara turned to Sephy, her chest rising and falling rapidly as she visibly struggled to contain her temper. “A misogynist and a homophobe and he’s just…”

“Vile?” Sephy suggested, and Clara gave a curt little nod. “Yes, I got that vibe.”

Clara looked down at her hands and seemed to notice, for the first time, that she was still holding the lighter and cigarette she had been about to light when Sephy chanced upon her. As Sephy looked over, in the brightness of the kitchen the veracity of Clara’s words were evident – it was nothing more incongruous than a hand-rolled cigarette, and she felt a pang of guilt over her accusations of minutes ago.

“We should…” Clara took a deep breath. “We should go.”

“I think that might be an idea,” Sephy concurred, and they headed out into the hall, retrieving their coats and then stepping out into the bitterly cold February night and letting out twin sounds of complaint at the biting wind. As they trudged towards the Tube in silence, Clara’s hand remained in Sephy’s, clinging on like a lifeline, and Sephy struggled to find the right words to provide solace or apology.

“Who is he?” she asked eventually, for want of anything more significant to say. “That guy… Harry Saxon. Who is he?”

“He’s the brother of Missy Saxon. She’s deeply odious as well, but at least she has the advantage of not hating women… or making objectifying comments about them. Not ones of that sort, anyway.”

“That’s something,” Sephy muttered, then added: “Who’s Missy Saxon?”

Clara let out a yelp of surprise. “Missy Saxon? Come on, everyone knows… Melissa Saxon? Ringing any bells?”

“ _Oh_ ,” Sephy mumbled as realisation dawned; now that the name had been lengthened, she recognised it. “The designer?”

“Yes, her. Never was there a woman who suited her name less.”

“Melissa?”

“Yeah,” Clara snorted. “It’s a very sensible name, and she’s very much not-sensible. Not even slightly. She’s absolutely insane.”

“Well, Harry is a young person name and that guy was at least forty.”

“And a dickhead.”

“And a dickhead,” Sephy repeated with a nod, swiping her Oyster card and stepping through the barriers of the station, Clara doing the same beside her. “Why doesn’t he like you?”

“Oh, he doesn’t like anyone, especially women. I don’t think he even likes his own sister. I’m reasonably sure he thinks that all women belong in the kitchen, doing the cooking and cleaning and child-bearing and not doing totally unreasonable things like having jobs, or autonomy, or the vote.”

“Yeah, I mean, what next?” Sephy rolled her eyes as they stepped onto the escalators and felt a wave of hot, stuffy air rise to meet them. “We might start thinking we have rights and that we’re equal to blokes.”

“God forbid,” Clara deadpanned, then added more seriously: “He’s terribly old-school. His ex-wife left him a few years back, and I think it sort of consolidated his feelings towards women – that they’re all devious and let you down, or whatever the hell he thinks. He’s a bitter old fucker.”

“What happened to her?”

“She uh… she killed herself,” Clara said quietly, her words almost lost in the roar from a departing train at the platform running parallel to their own. They took a seat on their own side, Clara’s head bowed and her tone unusually subdued. “I don’t know what he did to her, and I’m sure he’d deny it was his fault if pressed, but she couldn’t live with it. He’s just… vile. Absolutely vile.”

“And he knows how to push your buttons.”

“Oh, he knows how to push everyone’s buttons. He’s a particularly irritating git like that.”

“One of those?”

“One of those.”

“Ah,” Sephy looked down at her lap. “I’m sorry I accused you of… well, you know. I panicked.”

“Not unreasonably.”

“No – what?”

“It wasn’t unreasonable of you to think that, so, really… it’s fine.”

“It is?”

“Yes,” Clara elbowed her in the side. “It’s fine. You were looking out for me.”

“And you looked out for me,” Sephy smiled a little, then snorted. “I can’t believe you punched him.”

“He had that coming,” Clara said breezily. “He’d had it coming for a good long while, so I really think that was several years’ worth of karma for being an utter prick.”

“It’s just a shame you didn’t damage his face; I’m sure he’d have been livid if you’d broken his nose.”

“Faces are not good things to hit. It hurts your hands.”

“And chests… _are_ good things to hit?”

“Better than faces,” Clara clicked her tongue. “Too much bone and cartilage on faces; too many edges and sharp things that you might hurt yourself on. You’re just as likely to end up injured as the person you’re hitting.”

“Do you speak from experience here?”

A train pulled into the station, and they boarded wordlessly, the doors humming shut behind them before Clara spoke again.

“Maybe.”

“Who did you punch in the face?!”

“Someone who deserved it more than Harry Saxon,” Clara muttered. “A _lot_ more.”

“What happened? You know, after?”

“He went home with a broken nose and I went home with two fractured metacarpals.”

“Ow.”

“Yes, ow.”

“Do you have any now? Fractured metacarpals, that is?”

“No idea, but I’m hoping not,” Clara lifted her right hand and inspected it apprehensively. “I think it’s fine.”

Sephy reached over and took Clara’s hand in her own, examining it carefully, flexing the fingers and gently probing the skin around the knuckles. Clara let out a small hiss of complaint only once, and Sephy shook her head.

“I think you’re fine.”

“I _just_ said that.”

“Well, a second opinion never hurt anyone,” Sephy stuck her tongue out at Clara. “It might be a bit bruised. Hitting an ego like that, I’m not bloody surprised.”

“Oh, he’s just full of hot air.”

“Just sadly not literally, or your knuckles wouldn’t hurt.”

“Good point, well made,” Clara grinned, splaying her fingers. “They’ll be fine in the morning.”

“And he… knows about us?” Sephy said in a small voice, the question slipping out unbidden. It wasn’t something she had planned on vocalising aloud; it was a fear that she had been harbouring since his callous words – since, even, Yvonne’s words earlier in the evening – and it seemed silly when spoken aloud.

“He does,” Clara sighed heavily. “He’s a prick, and he’ll tell Missy, but it can’t be helped. She won’t take it anywhere; she’s a cow, but she’s not an idiot. She knows what’ll happen if she starts spreading anything about me.”

“Which is?”

“Lawyers. Many, many lawyers,” Clara smiled wearily. “Or mutually assured destruction; I know some things about her that I’m sure she wouldn’t want getting out there.”

“Such as?”

“Oh, she has certain… _proclivities_ which might prove embarrassing if they came to light. She’d be really _tied up in knots_ trying to nip those rumours in the bud.”

“Oh,” Sephy’s eyes widened as understanding dawned. “How do you know that?”

“We were at a party together once,” Clara said vaguely, but her cheeks were burning. “And she decided to urm… demonstrate.”

“Why are you blushing?”

“I’m not blushing,” Clara said at once, putting her hands over her face. “Don’t know what you mean.”

“Were you the demonstration model?” Sephy asked with a smirk. “Or just the audience?”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Clara complained. “It was…”

“Don’t finish that sentence,” Sephy teased. “Or I might have to go and give her a talking to.”

“Can we change the subject?” Clara pleaded. “Please, for the love of god, can we change the subject?”

“Fine,” Sephy said innocently. “Why don’t we talk about how _tied up_ you’ll be when you get back to work?”

“I hate you.”

“No, you don’t.”


	35. Chapter 35

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clara makes a triumphant return to work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope everyone is keeping safe at this tough time ❤️

“Clara, you can’t avoid me forever,” Donna had snapped in one of the many voicemails she’d left Clara, although her tone had been far softer than usual – almost fond, although Clara may have been imagining that. “Nor can you avoid the office forever. I know you’re probably off doing… I don’t even want to know, actually; but you need to come back to work and sort some of this stuff out.”

She had not, Clara noted, specified what ‘this stuff’ was. Nonetheless, Clara knew that she could not, by rights, continue to live forever in her blissful domestic bubble with Sephy, pretending the outside world didn’t exist, and so she’d reluctantly got up that morning, got ready for work in the most comfortable-yet-chic outfit she could find, pressed a litany of sleepy kisses to Sephy’s lips and cheeks, and then left her a note before slipping off to the office. She’d barely made it into the Tube station before a teenager approached her in awe and asked for a selfie, and finding herself unaccustomed to such attention – except, perhaps, from photographers attempting to goad a reaction from her – she’d dithered for a moment before acquiescing, accepting the youth’s murmured words of praise with quiet, appreciative thanks.

On the way to the office, people had stared; not overtly, but when they’d thought she wasn’t looking, they’d cast sideways glances at her over the tops of their copies of the _Metro_ or their phones. Clara had ignored it all, and upon arrival at her stop, had exited the carriage and allowed herself a small smile; this was something she had never aspired to, but it was still somewhat flattering; previously, when people had stolen such glances at her, they had been blatant in their judgement; silently castigating the famed party girl for her lavish lifestyle or perceived excesses. These glances, in contrast, had been respectful, and Clara had felt a rush of pride which she had instinctively fought to quash, before realising that perhaps such pride was well-earned and trying to encourage herself to relax.

Upon arrival at the office, her staff had greeted her with warmth, and seemed surprised when she’d returned their thanks with her own words of appreciation and gratitude; after all, she wouldn’t have been able to achieve anything without their long hours of work. By the time she’d made it to her desk, she was in a positively buoyant mood, which had evaporated almost at once when she’d logged into her Mac and discovered the many hundreds of emails sat in her inbox.

As she sighed and clicked on the first one, the door to her office slammed open, and Donna Noble all but danced through the doorway.

“You!” Donna shrieked with glee; her expression radiant. “You! Are a bloody sensation!”

Clara blinked hard. In all the time in which Donna had been in her employ, she had never seen her this ebullient; she was usually fixated on chastising Clara for her latest PR disaster, or imploring her to do an interview – any interview, just an interview, _please_. This was a singularly uncommon occurrence, and Clara was unsure how to respond to such sheer, unbridled delight.

“Urm,” Clara said uncertainly, grateful for any excuse to avoid her emails. “Thank you? I think?”

“Thank me?!” Donna dropped into the chair opposite her desk. “Don’t thank me; thank yourself. You’ve finally come good, Oswald. I knew keeping you on the books was a good idea, even when Shaun was giving it all this ‘you’re wasting your time, she’s never going to amount to anything.’ I told him he was wrong. I _knew_ he was wrong. He’s been really eating humble pie on that one.”

“Literally?” Clara asked, her mouth quirking up into a grin. “Or metaphorically?” It was not unlike Donna to have somehow managed to bake something akin to humble pie, and forced her husband to eat it.

“He’s been doing a lot of apologising. I got flowers sent to the office yesterday – bloody great big bouquet of roses, it was, and he was stood behind his desk looking all pleased with himself, and yes, alright, they’re very nice, but where the hell am I meant to put a hundred roses? I mean, who has vases that big? The prat,” Donna smiled affectionately at the memory. “He’s taking me for dinner tonight. Clos Maggiore in Covent Garden. Says I’ll love it; not sure though. I think all the flowers on the ceiling might make it a bit… dunno. Flower-fairy-y.”

Clara laughed. “Well, given that it’s thanks to me that he’s taking you out, why don’t I pay?”

Donna stared at her in open-mouthed consternation. “What?” she asked.

“Well, if he’s taking you out to apologise for being wrong about me, the least I can do is keep proving to him that I’m not a waste of space, and pay for your evening. Why are you looking at me like that?”

Donna was still staring at her in bafflement. “That,” she managed after a moment. “Is the nicest thing you have ever said to me.”

“What, offering to pay for your dinner?” Clara frowned, mentally running through her interactions with Donna over the years. “It can’t be.”

“It is,” Donna said, her face adopting a more neutral expression. “Believe me. Four years. That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me or done for me.”

“Is it?” Clara felt a twinge of guilt. “Christ, I’m sorry. I’ve been… well, a total cow.”

“You can say that again,” Donna said with a snort of mirth, and Clara felt another stab of guilt. “Still. If this is what a good collection does for you, more good collections please. In the meantime, paying for dinner would be… very nice. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Clara smiled. “How can I help, anyway?”

“Well, you could pay for a holiday to the-”

“Donna,” Clara chuckled. “Don’t take the piss. Work. How can I help you _in a work capacity_? You look exceptionally pleased to see me and it’s making me nervous.”

“Well, how _can’t_ you help me? You’re a bloody… I don’t even know. Wunderkind. Is that a word? Seems like a word. You’re the golden girl of Fashion Week; everyone wants a piece of you. I’ve had so many phone calls about you that I’ve had to get _another_ phone and get one of the girls to answer it. _The Times_ want an editorial – I’m sure you saw that online – and _Elle_ want to do a feature on you. _Vogue_ have asked for an interview for their Spring edition, as well, and-”

“Sorry,” Clara felt her stomach lurch at the mention of the hallowed magazine. “ _Vogue_? Like… Edward Enninful, that _Vogue_?”

“He asked for you personally. He rang me on my lunch break. I looked like a complete tit, nearly dropped my latte.”

“Sorry,” Clara said again, shaking her head in disbelief. “You’re telling me that he phoned you _himself_ and asked for me?”

“Yes!” Donna’s face contorted into a scowl. “And I had to tell him that I didn’t have a bloody clue where you were, because no one had heard from you for days. I think I said you were having quiet time after your show. Frankly, you needed it.”

“Yes, I did,” Clara mumbled, struggling to process what she was hearing. “Edward… Jesus. Is this real?”

“Well, if it isn’t, I want a refund on this dream, because no dream of mine features you. Sorry. Most of my dreams feature Tom Hardy naked. Or Henry Cavill.”

“You have a husband.”

“Whom I love very much, but who is sadly not Tom Hardy.”

“Fair point,” Clara grimaced, unable to believe what she was hearing. “God. This is…”

“Where _have_ you been? I mean, other than you surfacing to punch Harry Saxon in the face, no one’s heard from you.”

“I did not punch him in the face,” Clara rolled her eyes at the exaggeration. “I punched him in the general chest area, because he was being a prick-”

“-no change there, then.”

“No, no change there,” Clara grinned. “And I’ve wanted to do that for ages, and he was being a prick to me and my girlf-”

The word was halfway out of her mouth before she could stop it, and she realised that Donna was absolutely the wrong person to say such a thing to. Her eyes lit up almost comically, and she let out a shriek of amazement.

“Your _what_?!” she crowed, eyes boggling. “Clara Oswald, you kept that quiet!”

“Yeah, well,” Clara felt herself turn a violent shade of maroon. “It’s been a quiet thing so far; we’re just… you know. Taking things slowly.”

“Would it be a lovely lady by the name of Sephy Lautrec, by any chance?” Donna asked, and Clara gaped at her. “Oh, please. I’ve got eyes. You’ve been mooning after her for months, and she’s almost as bloody bad. The two of you have been like lovesick puppies. Everyone in the office has known you’re mad for each other for months.”

“We’re not… we haven’t… the words… I… that is… we…”

“God, you’re hilarious when you blush,” Donna laughed. “You’ve gone all pink, you know that? It’s actually quite cute. We all know you’re in love with her, so don’t bother trying to deny it, because every single person in this office knows that it’s bullshit. You practically turn into the heart-eyes emoji when she’s so much as in the vicinity.”

“I do _not_.”

“Oh, please. Watching you stick pins in her – well, in clothes on her – was singularly one of the most awkward things I have ever had to witness. The sexual tension was so palpable I felt like I was watching something erotic.”

“Donna,” Clara groaned, putting her head in her hands. “Why are you…”

“Why am I what?” Donna asked cheekily. “Clara, a blind person could have seen it. You were not exactly subtle.”

“I just… you can’t tell anyone, alright?”

“Who would I tell? It’s not like everyone else here doesn’t know. Like I said, you’ve really not been subtle.”

“Donna, we’re trying to…”

“Please, as far as the media are concerned, she’s your muse. All very nice and very sweet. _The Times_ want her in the editorial actually; they’d usually use their models but they’re willing to make an exception after she received such favourable press at Fashion Week.”

Clara thought of Sephy; Sephy, who had never wanted to be a model; Sephy, who didn’t want anything to do with media such as _Vogue_ ; Sephy, who couldn’t have told you who the editor of such a publication even was. She would hate it, and yet the idea of doing the shoot alone, or having to see her clothes on generic-looking, bored-seeming models was anathema.

“Not a problem,” Clara said, with a hint of trepidation she tried not to let show. “She’ll do it.”

* * *

Sephy had, upon waking up alone, immediately panicked. She had a dim recollection of kisses and murmured apologies, and then she had rolled over and found Clara’s note on the pillow beside her and felt some of her anxiety alleviate as she read and re-read the words, scrawled in Clara’s looping handwriting and suffixed by three neatly-drawn kisses and a love heart.

Whilst her partner was at work seemed the opportune time to pay a visit home; she hadn’t seen River or Jenny since before the show, and even then she had been caught up in worrying about walking the runway; she’d been utterly preoccupied by the importance of keeping her balance and avoiding embarrassing Clara by falling on her arse in front of the assembled media.

As she trudged along River’s road, a bunch of flowers in one hand and a bag of goodies from M&S in the other, she felt a swooping sense of trepidation as she realised there would be the inevitable question of why, precisely, she had dropped off the face of the earth for several days. She wouldn’t be able to lie – she never had been able to, not to River – and so she would simply need to omit key details as she recounted the story to them, and so she began to mentally rehearse it in her head.

There was no need for them to know the truth; not when it would only cause them pain and elicit a lecture that would surely go on for some hours. For now, she would simply tell them she’d been looking after Clara, which was not strictly a lie. The fact they had been sharing a bed for the previous few nights was neither here nor there, and Sephy resolved not to mention it.

As she fumbled through her pockets for the key, the front door swung open to reveal a Lycra-clad Jenny, who was stood with her hands on her hips and a bemused expression on her face.

“Where,” her sister asked politely. “The ever living _hell_ have you been?”


	36. Chapter 36

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Arriving at the family home, Sephy finds that her sister and stepmother have been worried about her, and River offers a warning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope everyone is keeping safe!

“It’s nice to see you too,” Sephy shot back at her sister, crossing the threshold and setting the bag of goodies and bouquet of flowers down on the hall table, before turning to her sister and shrugging off her coat in a bid to detract from her embarrassment at being put on the spot. “I missed you too, sister darling.”

“Yeah, it’s nice to know that you remember we exist now,” Jenny leaned against the newel post at the bottom of the stairs, folding her arms and affixing Sephy with a distinctly accusatory glare that she had _definitely_ inherited from her mother. “We thought you’d _died_ or something; you weren’t messaging Mum back and she’s been going absolutely _spare-_ ”

River appeared at the top of the stairs at that moment, her eyes widening when she took in the sight of Sephy, who was now stood sheepishly in the middle of the hall and clutching her jacket, feeling a distinct sense of embarrassment as she realised her sister was right. She watched as her stepmother rearranged her features into an expression of neutrality, and then descended the stairs with an imperious air that would’ve been impressive if it weren’t so laden with contempt.

“So,” River said formally, her tone stiff. “It lives.”

“Look,” Sephy began. “I’m sorry; I got caught up in things, and I should’ve kept in touch, but I haven’t, and I’m sorry.”

“What do we think?” River asked Jenny, speaking as though Sephy weren’t present. “Do we accept this apology? After we watched that woman’s show to support you and then you vanished off the face of the earth?”

“No,” Jenny said loftily. “I don’t think we do.”

“I brought profiteroles,” Sephy said in a small voice, trying to ignore how much their words stung, even though she knew they were justified. “And those little chocolate cornflake bites you like. And a toffee and pecan roulade.”

“Bribery will not soften our stance,” Jenny continued in a snooty tone, but River’s expression relaxed a degree or two at the mention of the desserts. “We-”

“We will reconsider our position while unloading the proffered items,” River said grandly, before she grinned at Sephy and held out her arms, her aloofness evaporating. Sephy stepped into the embrace with gratitude, resting her head on her stepmother’s shoulder and letting out a small sigh of relief. “We were worried about you, kid.”

“I know,” Sephy mumbled, fighting the sudden urge to cry. “I’m sorry, I just got so caught up in things and it all got so busy and so mad… I just… I was an idiot, and I should have stayed in touch.”

“Yes, you should’ve,” Jenny chipped in, reaching for the bag of desserts. “But you’re here now, and you brought food, and that’s what counts.”

“Is it the food that counts, or my physical presence?”

“Clearly the food,” Jenny rolled her eyes. “I don’t want your physical presence. Ew. Totally throwing off my only-child vibes.”

“You wish you were the only child,” Sephy teased. “You’ve got the ego going, though.”

“Oi!”

“Girls,” River chastised, letting go of Sephy and looking between the two of them with a stern glare that made Sephy feel like a teenager again. “Play nicely. Jenny, go and get changed.”

“But _Mum_ ,” Jenny groaned. “I was going to go for-”

“I don’t care how far you intended to run; the only place your feet will be taking you now will be upstairs to get changed, then back downstairs and into the lounge so that you can eat some of the food your sister has brought.”

“Yeah Jenny,” Sephy stuck her tongue out at her sister petulantly. “Do what your mum says.”

“You two are incorrigible,” River said with a sigh, taking the bag of food from the side and then pausing, her hand hovering over the bouquet of brightly-coloured chrysanthemums and gerberas that lay alongside. “Is this…”

“That’s for you,” Sephy flashed an apologetic grin. “To say sorry for, you know, being a prat.”

“Suck up,” Jenny muttered under her breath, as River beamed.

“Thank you, darling,” River lifted the bouquet into the crook of her left arm, then turned and flashed her younger daughter an accusatory glare. “ _You_ never get me flowers.”

“Mum, I got you flowers last Mother’s Day.”

“Under duress from me,” Sephy noted. “Not of your own volition.”

“Look, excuse me,” Jenny whined. “Mum, I thought we were ganging up on her; why are you ganging up on me with her?”

“Because it’s fun, darling,” River tipped her a wink, and Jenny adopted a faux-pout of epic proportions. “Aw, come on. You know you’re my best girls.”

“We’re your only girls,” Sephy noted, heading off in the direction of the kitchen. “I’ll stick the kettle on, yeah?”

“Good idea,” River called from behind her. “Usual, please.”

There was the faint sound of footsteps ascending the stairs, and Sephy turned her attention to filling the kettle and flicking it on. A moment later, River stepped into the kitchen alone, and placed the bag of food on the side.

“Jenny’s getting changed,” she announced, somewhat unnecessarily, before setting down her flowers and turning her back to Sephy as she retrieved a vase from the cupboard and filled it at the sink. “Do you want to tell me what you’ve been doing for the last few days, or do you want to continue to pretend that I’m stupid?”

“I’m not pretending anything,” Sephy countered, feeling anxiety flare in the pit of her stomach. “I’ve just been busy.”

“I’m not an idiot,” River said, her tone soft yet steely. “I saw what happened to Clara at the end of the show. What was it? Drink? Drugs?”

“Nervous exhaustion.”

“If you believe that, you’re a bigger fool than I took you for,” River unwrapped the bouquet and retrieved a pair of scissors from a nearby drawer, starting to trim each bloom to fit the vase. “You really are.”

“She’s not… that’s not… she was working hard and she was exhausted.”

“So, what? This is your problem now? Is that why you’ve not been in touch, because you’ve been… I don’t know, taking care of her?”

“I’ve been trying my best, yes!” Sephy snapped, clenching her hands into fists as her temper flared. “Isn’t that what you always taught me? To take care of people, to look after people? To do the right thing? To help others out when they’re in need? Well, I’ve been helping her, just like you always told me to do, and if that makes me a bad person, then I guess I’m a bad person.”

“It doesn’t make you a bad person,” River said quietly. “It makes you a gullible one. She reels people in and she traps them, and I think you’re in deeper than you want me to know. Am I right?”

“No,” Sephy said testily. “No, you’re not.”

“You know, don’t you, that I’m unspeakably proud of you?” River said by way of response, and the sudden change of tone was disconcerting. Sephy’s temper failed to wane, however, so she simply stood with her head bowed and her fists balled, uncertain of how to respond. “So, so proud of you, and your father would have been too.”

“Don’t,” Sephy muttered. Perhaps he would have been, or perhaps he would have done his usual, habitual act of overlooking her achievements in favour of Jenny. She doubted whether walking in Fashion Week would have been enough to grab his attention; he would probably have been prouder of Jenny’s fitness endeavours. They were, at the very least, what he would have termed ‘improving.’

“I know what you’re thinking,” River cut into her train of thought. “And I know what you’re telling yourself, but he did care, in his own way.”

“Don’t give me that.”

“He _did_.”

“He never gave a shit, River,” Sephy stated bluntly, her stepmother’s attempted warnings about Clara and the sudden mention of her father filling her with bitter self-loathing. “I wasn’t exciting. I was the burdensome daughter from the first marriage who got in the way of his new, wonderful, happy family. I was the problematic reminder of the woman who went off the rails. I’m sure he wished, more than once, that I’d been in that car with her when she died. Then I wouldn’t have got in the way. Then I wouldn’t have-”

River’s hand connected with her cheek sharply, and Sephy let out a yelp of shock.

“Don’t you ever say that,” River said, her chest rising and falling rapidly as she stared Sephy down with fury. “Don’t you ever, ever say that. He _did_ care, he just didn’t know how; he certainly never wanted you dead. And god knows, that would’ve killed him, because while you were around there was still a little piece of Elizabeth on this earth; still a little piece of her that could bring him some comfort.”

“It hurt him to look at me.”

“Wouldn’t it hurt you? To look at your child and see the person you’d lost?”

“Yes,” Sephy mumbled, knowing it was true. “But I wouldn’t punish the child for it.”

“So, he was human. He wasn’t always right and he didn’t always do the right thing. He wasn’t very good at it, but he _did_ love you.”

“I just…” the kettle clicked, and Sephy turned towards the sound, grateful for the distraction. “I just wish he’d showed it sometimes.”

“I know,” River said, crossing the room and wrapping an arm around Sephy’s waist. “I know. I’m sorry I… I just don’t want you thinking in that way. I don’t want you to see him as this awful person, because he wasn’t, and I know that my perception of him will always be different to yours, but he was a good man. Often a very confused, awkward, and strange man, but a good man.”

“Often very, very strange,” Sephy corrected, smiling sadly to herself. “Very, very, very.”

River smiled a wry smile. “Yes indeed.”

Jenny strutted into the kitchen and headed towards the fridge, yanking it open and checking inside before looking around with disappointment.

“I was promised profiter- sweet god, what happened to your _cheek_?!” she asked, staring at Sephy in shock before narrowing her eyes in her mother’s direction in a quizzical manner. “Mum, did you finally give her a smack? Isn’t she a bit old for that?”

“She was being terribly rude about your father,” River said calmly. “I have since apologised.”

“We’re all terribly rude about Dad,” Jenny opened the M&S bag and extracted the profiteroles with a gleeful expression. “It’s sort of a family pastime.”

“You’re not too old for a smack either,” River warned. “And put those down, they’re for pudding.”

“Is the roulade for main?” Jenny asked hopefully, then caught sight of her mother’s glare and grimaced. “Fine, what’s the main course?”

“Haven’t got that far,” River said breezily. “Make yourself useful and do some thinking.”

“Can’t I make myself useful and make Sephy’s other cheek all red?”

“Jog on,” Sephy told her with bemusement. “You’re tiny, and that is a fight you will lose.”

“You wish.”

“I am so, so glad,” River said with a martyred expression. “That I was blessed with two wonderfully mature daughters who I can leave in a room unsupervised and know they will not try to kill each other.”

“We don’t _try_ ,” Jenny pointed out magnanimously. “If I was really trying, she’d be dead by now.”

“I honestly don’t know what I did to deserve this,” River deadpanned. “I truly don’t.”

“Yeah, me neither,” Jenny chipped in. “I mean, I had a normal sister, and now she’s a supermodel.”

“I’m not a supermodel,” Sephy countered, shaking her head firmly at the accusation. “Very, very long way from being a supermodel.”

“Are you sure?” Jenny wrinkled her nose. “You looked pretty super while you were strutting your stuff on the catwalk at Fashion Week.”

“That was perilously close to a compliment,” Sephy noted. “So, thank you, I think.”

“You are _welcome_. Please can you nab me some free clothes?”

“Absolutely not, and besides, you wouldn’t like them. They’re not made of Lycra.”

“I’m sure I could live.”

“Mm, it’s still an absolute no,” Sephy shrugged. “Flashy clothes are reserved for me and me only.”

“See, Mum?” Jenny complained. “I told you her ego would get all massive. And it has. Her head’s already huge; she’s not going to fit through the front door if it gets any larger.”

“Be nice,” River chided, although she was grinning. “We’re very proud of you, Sephy. Honest.”

“Speak for yourself!” Jenny protested, before sighing and flashing her sister a smile. “No, I am. Honestly. It’s cool that I get to brag about you; I look really interesting now.”

“Ah, my sister is so, so selfless and good-hearted,” Sephy deadpanned. “It’s truly an honour.”


	37. Chapter 37

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Returning to Clara and finding her in a state, Sephy decides to take drastic action.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope everyone is keeping safe and well!

It was late by the time Sephy slipped back into the flat, having been unable to extricate herself from the warm hospitality of her stepmother without having, in River’s eyes, a ‘viable excuse.’ She was full of food and contentment, the edge of the winter night’s chill taken off by the glow imbued on her by a mug of hot chocolate consumed after dinner. As she removed her shoes at the door and padded towards the lounge on socked feet, she smiled as she noticed the glow spilling from the doorway, her face lighting up at the prospect of seeing Clara again in a way that made her feel like a giddy teenager again. She hadn’t realised until now quite how much time they had been spending together, and while she knew that it was important for them to not be joined at the hip, it was still a pleasant, comfortable feeling to be coming back here to someone who would be pleased to see her, rather than an empty house and a cold bed.

“I’m back!” she called, stepping over the threshold and then freezing. Clara was curled up at one end of the sofa, her eyes wide and red-rimmed. An empty wine glass was perched on the extreme edge of the coffee table, with a mostly-empty bottle beside it, and Sephy’s heart sank. Clara looked over at her with disbelief, her expression both relieved and terrified in equal measure, and Sephy felt a stab of panic, crossing the room to her partner before dropping to her knees beside the sofa and reaching for Clara’s hand. As she did so, the other woman recoiled sharply, and Sephy felt a stab of rejection, coupled with a wave of confusion as to why, precisely, Clara looked so scared of her.

“What’s wrong?” Sephy asked softly, reaching for Clara again, and although her partner flinched, she allowed Sephy to rest her hand against her arm. “Why do you look so freaked out? What’s happened?”

“I thought…” Clara mumbled, her words slightly slurred. “I thought… you… you weren’t here when I came home and I… I… I thought you weren’t coming back…”

“Oh, Clara,” Sephy said quietly, holding out her arms and feeling guilt prickle at her as Clara leant forwards and collapsed into the embrace with tangible relief. “Of course I was coming back. I went to see some friends and I lost track of the time, that’s all. I’m sorry. I should have texted you and told you.”

“I just thought… I really thought… I thought you’d…”

“I’m never going to do that,” Sephy murmured, holding Clara close and pressing a kiss to her hair. “Never, ever, ever. I’m sorry I scared you.”

“I’m sorry too,” Clara shook her head, suddenly trying – and failing – to pull away from Sephy, reaching for the empty glass and sending it flying as she lunged for it. The last remaining drops spilled across the carpet in a lurid, spreading stain. “I… it was just supposed to be one glass… but I… I was so anxious and I didn’t know what to do so I just… I couldn’t stop…”

Sephy looked over at the bottle, empty save for a centimetre or so of ruby-hued liquid at the very bottom. Was this all it took? The most minor inconvenience; the most arbitrary panic; and Clara would climb back into the comfort of a bottle of alcohol – any alcohol, it seemed, as long as it took her far away from the discomfort of her own mind and the cloying anxiety that she seemed so prone to. The slightest problem and Clara would retreat to the safety of her own inebriation, as though once she were there, she was untouchable. She’d told Sephy, all those weeks before, that drinking helped her to be someone else; helped her to feel confident, but as Sephy looked down at her now, she knew that was a lie. The woman clinging to her was not confident and was not someone else; the woman clinging to her was frightened and drunk and desperate, and Sephy felt a sudden, swooping sense of anger that began in the pit of her stomach and radiated through her.

Pulling away from Clara, she reached for the wine bottle and got to her feet, striding away from her partner and into the kitchen. Behind her, she could sense Clara’s confusion; a cry of “what-” dying on her lips as she tried and failed to get to her feet, her own sense of balance failing her as the wine pulsed its way through her system and she stumbled to the carpet.

Standing at the sink, Sephy tipped the remains of the bottle down the plughole and then headed to the cupboard in the corner which she knew Clara stashed her bottles of booze in. Flinging it open, she began to remove bottles at random and take them over to the sink, and it was then that Clara stumbled into the room, holding onto the doorframe for support.

“What do you think you’re…” she began, as Sephy removed the lid from a bottle of vodka and tipped it down the sink, the acrid smell making her nose wrinkle as it glugged and bubbled down the plughole. “Do you _know_ how much that cost?!”

“Don’t care,” Sephy said, reaching for a bottle of gin and doing the same, watching it gush down the plughole. “Think of it as expensive sink cleaner.”

“What the fuck… what gives you the right to…” Clara could only gape at her in horror as Sephy poured another, larger bottle of vodka down the sink, before shoving the bottle aside. “How…”

“Think of this as an intervention,” Sephy said calmly, tipping a fourth bottle of spirits down the sink and then returning to the cupboard and snagging several bottles of wine. “We tried it the nice way and that didn’t work, so think of this as the not-nice way.”

“But…” Clara’s eyes widened as she took in the label on one of the bottles, and she took a hesitant step forwards. “That’s… that’s a bloody… that’s a 2005 Châteauneuf-du-Pape, you can’t…”

“Get me a corkscrew.”

“No.”

“Get me a bloody corkscrew.”

“No!” Clara folded her arms obstinately, and Sephy fought the irrational urge to laugh – she looked like a stubborn child. She was _behaving_ like a stubborn child. “Why, so you can waste my expensive wine?”

“Something like that, yeah,” Sephy said coolly, opening the cutlery drawer, but Clara was faster; even in her inebriated state she managed to lunge for the corkscrew and squirrel it away, hiding behind her back and holding it there with a maddeningly smug smile. “Give me the corkscrew.”

“No.”

“Give me the sodding corkscrew.”

“No.”

“You’re acting like a child.”

“So?”

“I really don’t want to have to wrestle you for it. You’re not a toddler, so don’t make me pick you up like one.”

“Like you’d win,” Clara let out a sharp, unkind laugh that only made Sephy’s anger flare. “We both know I’ve got the upper hand here, and the sharper object. Do you really want to risk it? Wouldn’t that look excellent in the papers… ‘fashion designer accidentally stabbed with corkscrew in tussle.’ I mean, it would do wonders for my sales… maybe I should…”

“You’re disgusting,” Sephy said with contempt, feeling a genuine surge of fury that Clara would even entertain such a notion. “Truly.”

“Oh, I’m disgusting to you now?” Clara asked, her expression souring. “I’m… what? Repulsive? Loathsome? A sick fuck?”

“Stop putting words in my mouth,” Sephy snapped, looking down at the bottle of wine in her hands and contemplating the problem at hand. “You just threatened to die to boost your own sales, but yes, sure. I’m the bad person here.”

“You’re the one wasting hundreds of pounds of alcohol.”

“You’re the one who bought it all,” Sephy reminded her, then swung the bottle hard and without warning into the side of the sink, smashing the neck off. Clara let out a yelp of shock, and the cork and upper part of the neck fell into the basin in a shower of shards of glass, before Sephy set about pouring away the liquid.

“You’re out of your fucking mind,” Clara said in horrified awe. “You’re actually out of your fucking mind.”

“Am I?” Sephy asked in a flat, expressionless tone, smashing the next bottle’s neck and pouring that away too. “Wanting to save you from yourself; yes, I must be out of my bloody tree.”

“I don’t need saving!”

“You do!” Sephy snapped. “You do, because Jesus Christ, you’re a mess! You have a breakdown that I’m not here when you come home from work, waiting for you with dinner made and the chores done like a good little housewife; this isn’t my home, and you aren’t the extent of my world! You’re not my mother and I’m not a teenager; I don’t owe you an explanation of every single place I’m going or when I’m going to be back. I don’t owe you anything, but I’m here because I want to be, and yet apparently that isn’t enough for you to put your faith in me because the second I’m out of your line of sight for a _moment_ you assume I’ve left you; you assume the worst of me. I’ve been here with you every single day! Every single bloody day, taking care of you, making sure you get enough sleep and eat the right things and build your strength up, but because I decide that while you’re at work I’m going to go out and spend time with other people, clearly I must be leaving you. Clearly I don’t care. So the logical thing to do is to… what? Get shitfaced? Get shitfaced so none of it hurts as badly? Get shitfaced until you can hardly even see straight, and cry and cry and cry, instead of just… I don’t know, sending me a text like a normal human being.”

“I…”

“I don’t want to bloody hear it,” Sephy said firmly. “I really don’t. Just go into the lounge and sit down and stop being such a damn child.”

“Sephy, I…”

“Just _go_!” Sephy half-shouted, and Clara jumped before scuttling off towards the lounge. Sephy swore under her breath as she realised her partner still had the corkscrew, and she considered going and trying to wrest it from her before instead smashing another bottle against the edge of the sink. Misjudging the angle in her anger, a large shard of glass broke away from the neck, lancing upwards and into her palm, and she dropped the bottle into the sink with a yelp as blood welled up along the length of the wound, running down her fingers and dripping onto the shattered green glass that now covered the bottom of the basin.

“Fuck,” she muttered, turning on a tap and sticking the offending hand underneath it. Her eyes stung with sudden, irrational tears, and she watched as wine and blood swirled down the plughole, the two crimson liquids indistinguishable from each other. Reaching for the kitchen roll with her free hand, she tore off several sheets and then wrapped her hand in them, pressing down on the wound and biting back a scream.

“What did you do?” Clara asked softly from behind her, and she jumped, wheeling around and finding her partner stood in the doorway, her expression wide and concerned. As she looked from Sephy’s face to her hand, blood already seeping through the snowy-white paper towel, her eyes widened and she took a hesitant step forward. “Your hand! What happened?!”

“Go away,” Sephy muttered, but without malice. “It doesn’t matter. It’s fine.”

“It doesn’t look fine.”

“I’m managing it.”

“No, you’re bleeding,” Clara rebutted, opening a drawer and handing Sephy a clean tea towel. “Try that instead.”

“Thanks,” Sephy mumbled, removing the sodden paper towels and instead wrapping her hand in the proffered immaculate cotton cloth. “I just… misjudged it.”

Clara set the corkscrew on the counter beside Sephy. “It’s my fault, isn’t it?” she took Sephy’s silence, correctly, for agreement. “Shit. God, I’m sorry for being a child, I’m sorry I-”

“Yeah, well,” Sephy closed her eyes, a single tear escaping and rolling down her cheek as she cradled her injured hand in her good one. “You won’t get a bloody hold of yourself, will you?”

“I’m trying,” Clara said softly. “I really am. You didn’t need to…” she paused. “Alright, you probably did need to do this. But I never wanted you to… I didn’t think you’d… I’m sorry.”

They both knew that she didn’t just mean about the corkscrew; both knew she meant more than that. She meant the drinking and the anxiety and the overreacting; she meant the shouting and the childish behaviour and the bitterness.

“It’s fine,” Sephy said robotically. “Really. It’s fine. I just… I’m not going to watch you drink yourself to oblivion every time there’s a minor inconvenience.”

“And I’m not going to,” Clara forced a smile. “Can’t, now, anyway.”

“There’s still some left.”

“Yes, I’m really going to touch that after you’ve bled all over the sink making your grand point.”

“I’m sorry, next time I’ll bleed somewhere more convenient.”

“Stop being so bloody acerbic, I’m trying to apologise.”

“Sorry,” Sephy muttered. “It’s… appreciated. Really. I just… I can’t be with you if you’re going to keep behaving like this. I won’t. It’s not my job to be your carer, or to fix you. I’m not your counsellor, or your doctor.”

“I know,” Clara said with a wavering smile. “I do, really. And I don’t expect you to be.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes,” Clara paused for a moment, and then said tentatively: “I might need to be yours, though. That needs looking at.”

“It does not.”

“Just… let me call an Uber and we’ll let the professionals decide. Please.”

“I…” Sephy sighed. “Fine. _Fine_.”

“Let me look after you,” Clara implored her. “Alright? Just this once. Let me do the right thing.”


	38. Chapter 38

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At the hospital, Clara reflects on her life choices.

As Clara sat alongside Sephy on the uncomfortable, brightly-coloured plastic chairs that were a staple of Accident and Emergency waiting rooms across the country, she couldn’t help but feel distinctly convinced that this was, in some way, entirely her fault. Beside her, Sephy sat stoically and silently still, staring straight ahead at the wall opposite them, as though the posters advertising flu jabs, discouraging binge drinking, and promoting quitting smoking were the most interesting things she’d ever seen. Her hand was still wrapped in the tea towel from earlier that evening, although it was now stained in lurid, swirling red, like a perverse marble print, and one edge of the fabric had left a neatly-imprinted line of crimson on Sephy’s jeans.

“Oh,” Clara said softly, reaching over and lifting her partner’s hand from her lap, and Sephy jumped as though she’d been burned, snatching her hand away with an instinctive hiss of pain. “Sorry. Your…” she gestured uselessly at the stain, and Sephy looked down at it with disinterest, rubbing at it with her good thumb.

“Never mind,” she said dismissively. “They needed binning anyway.”

“I’m sure we could…”

“They’re just jeans,” her tone brooked no argument. “It’s not a big deal.”

“Oh,” Clara said thickly, the rebuttal stinging more than it should. “OK.”

She moved her hands back to her own lap, folding them together neatly in a manner she hadn’t done since school. The panic of the journey here, coupled with the harsh bite of the February air when they’d had to step outside, had robbed her of the pleasant glow that she’d previously been enjoying following her bottle of wine, and now her head ached dully; her mouth was uncomfortably dry; and she felt a strange sense of unreality, as though she were looking at the world through a filter. She wanted to say something more; wanted to provide a degree of comfort to Sephy, but instead her tongue felt heavy and useless in her mouth, and her brain seemed unable to string together anything longer than two or three words. She didn’t know what to say, other than to apologise, and she instinctively knew that doing so would only irk Sephy all the further.

Clara yearned to make small talk; to sit and chat about anything with her partner, as though that would reassure them both that there was no anger or bitterness there. And yet the fury and quiet anger that was radiating off Sephy in waves was enough to signal that she was in no mood for conversation, and so Clara simply bowed her head and tried to suppress the urge to cry. This was her fault – she was aware of that. Had she not been drinking, Sephy wouldn’t have needed to stage an intervention; had she not taken the corkscrew away, Sephy wouldn’t have needed to smash bottles to continue making her point. Perhaps that point had been more theatrically laboured than was strictly necessary, but Clara knew that Sephy’s anger was not misplaced; knew that she had a point when she accused her of having a drink problem.

She remembered the way it had sounded when Sephy had sworn, and known what it meant. In an instant, her anger at this woman – this woman who she had taken in and nurtured; this woman who was now determinedly tipping away hundreds and thousands of pounds of alcohol – dissipated, and she felt only panic. Seeing the blood dripping into the sink had been like a punch in the stomach, and as she stole another glance at Sephy’s loosely-bound hand, she felt her stomach lurch. That was her fault. The long, neat wound that was currently oozing blood into one of her best tea towels; that was her fault.

She hadn’t meant to start drinking that evening. She’d come home radiant with excitement and wanting nothing more than to share it with her partner; _Vogue_ wanted them! _Elle_ wanted them! _The Times_ wanted them! What had once seemed so fantastically unlikely was now coming to pass, and it was thanks to Sephy; Sephy, and the reinvigoration of her creative muse that she had brought with her, enlivening Clara’s creativity in a way that had been lacking for a number of years. She’d brought cakes with her, cheap and cheerful affairs from the artisan bakery on the way home, and she’d brought up the menu of a takeaway she was particularly fond of on her phone with the intent of ordering dinner for them both. She’d envisioned an evening spent celebrating in a quiet, intimate, restrained manner; just the two of them and good food.

But then the flat had been empty. The lights were off, and while there was the soft, reassuring warmth of the central heating, there was no _real_ warmth; no joyful, beaming Sephy to welcome her home. There was only empty rooms and long, torturous expanses of silence, into which she’d called Sephy’s name time and time again, wondering if perhaps this was part of some elaborate game, the rules of which she hadn’t been made privy to. And yet as the minutes had passed and she had been met with nothing but silence, she’d realised that she was alone in the flat; her attention then had turned to seeking out a note or any kind of indication of intentionality, but there was nothing. She’d checked her messages, checked her WhatsApp, checked every kind of platform she could think of – there was nothing but radio silence, coupled with physical silence, and as the darkness and solitude had consumed her, she’d felt her composure fraying.

The cakes had been forgotten; the Chinese takeaway menu had been abandoned. She’d sat on the sofa with her head in her hands, her anxiety spiralling out of control as she’d run over and over the previous few days, seeking out some kind of clue as to what might have happened or where Sephy might have gone. Had she done something? Said something? Had she driven Sephy away in some way that she was too obtuse to recognise?

The panic had clawed its way up her throat, her heartrate soaring as she’d succumbed to its clutches. She’d caused this; she didn’t know how, but she’d caused this, and now she would be alone forever. She’d driven Sephy away; she’d made some kind of faux pas; she’d filled Sephy with such loathing and contempt for her that she’d simply left and not looked back. She hadn’t even considered Clara worthy of deserving a note to explain her justification, and Clara felt herself spiralling into self-loathing as she realised the contemptible, dreadful ways in which she’d behaved, not only to Sephy but to all those around her. She couldn’t blame her for leaving; couldn’t blame her for refusing to look back.

Clara had, after what felt like hours of self-detestation and self-criticism, finally padded into the kitchen on unsteady legs, reaching into the cupboard for something – anything – that might soothe her troubled mind. She’d almost cut herself trying to remove the cork from the bottle of red wine, the corkscrew shaking as her hands trembled like aspen leaves, but when she’d finally poured herself a glass, slopping ruby liquid onto the counter and wiping it up with a finger, she’d felt a fleeting sense of calm. This would help; this would take the edge of. This would bring her relief; this would help to soothe her racing heartbeat, and sate the hard, painful ache in her throat that came with unshed tears.

Only the first glass hadn’t done that. Nor had the second. All that they’d done had been liberate her tears so that they spilled down her cheeks like liquid regret, leaving shining lines on her skin as she’d wept without hope. She hadn’t bothered trying to stem the tears, and as she’d consumed her third and fourth glasses, they’d dried on her skin and left it raw and tight; they’d dripped onto her shirt and left a ring of foundation-hued dampness that had now dried to crisp stiffness around her shoulders.

Sephy reached over and rested her good hand in Clara’s lap, nudging her fingertips against her clasped hands until Clara numbly relented and opened her palms, allowing Sephy’s hand to settle between them. It took her a moment to register the gesture, lost as she was in the hazy recollections of earlier in the evening, and when she finally did look down, it took all of her composure to not jump in surprise.

“What…”

“Come back,” Sephy said quietly. “I know what you’re thinking about, so stop, and come back.”

“Come back to where?” Clara asked, frowning in incomprehension.

“Come back to here and now,” Sephy gave her hand a gentle squeeze. “Stop worrying about everything that happened earlier.”

“But you’re…”

“Bleeding, yes. Because you were stubborn, and because I was stubborn, and I might have got a bit too carried away while making a point. Don’t lose yourself thinking about the what-ifs, and don’t blame yourself.”

“But it’s my…”

“No,” Sephy told her firmly. “No, it’s not. You didn’t ask me to start smashing things. That was all me.”

“I took the corkscrew.”

“You have met me, yes? I’d probably have slipped and stuck it through my hand, and that would’ve been a real doozy of an injury to explain to the triage nurse.”

Clara shuddered at the thought. “Don’t.”

“Well!” Sephy chuckled. “I’m sorry I’ve ruined your tea towel.”

“It was a Christmas present from Yvonne,” Clara said absentmindedly. “It’s Egyptian cotton.”

“Well, it’s very absorbent, so she did a cracking job there,” Sephy turned over her injured hand tentatively, then unwrapped a corner of the fabric. “I think it’s stopping.”

“You said that twenty minutes ago,” Clara reminded her. “And then you nearly bled all over your jeans.”

“Well, they’ve got blood on now anyway,” Sephy said, unwrapping the cloth a little further. “So, I’ll chance it.”

“Please don’t-” Clara begged, not wanting to see the scarlet-smeared mess that was Sephy’s palm, but her partner had unwound the makeshift bandage before she could protest. As she lifted the cloth away, Clara took a deep breath, and then there it was; a neat, almost surgically-precise V, which as they watched welled up with blood.

“Ah,” Sephy said. “Damn.”

She wrapped her hand back up and gritted her teeth, leaning her head back against the wall.

“I’m an idiot,” she said faintly. “A massive idiot.”

“A little bit, yeah,” Clara said in a small voice, elbowing her gently in the side. “But so am I… and also… you’re my idiot.”

“You aren’t bleeding.”

“You’re bleeding because of me.”

“I’m bleeding because I want you to stop drinking and I got a bit over the top with trying to enforce that. You did not, in fact, stab me in the hand with a shard of glass. If you did, and you’ve modified my memory, please can you leave it be, because I don’t need to know that my girlfriend is Dracula.”

“I’m not Dracula,” Clara assured her. “And you know… I really hope this heals quickly.”

“Why?” Sephy frowned. “I can live without a hand for a couple of weeks.”

“I can’t live without you having use of one hand for a couple of weeks,” Clara shot back, and as Sephy arched an eyebrow out her, she realised the implications of her words. “No! Not for… not like that! It’s just… well…” she lowered her voice. “ _Vogue_ want us to do a piece. And _Elle._ And _The Times._ And _The Times_ want you as the model.”

“I wasn’t aware they were so into fashion.”

“It’s their weekend magazine. And they might be miffed if you bleed all over everything you touch.”

“I haven’t said yes yet.”

“Are you _going_ to say yes?” Clara asked, loathing how pathetically desperate her voice sounded.

“I might,” Sephy said levelly. “If they can photoshop my hand so that it doesn’t look like I’ve had surgery done on it with a piece of glass. And if they don’t object to me _maybe_ bleeding on some things.”

“You hate modelling.”

“Yes, but I love you, so I’ll put up with it.”

Clara froze. The words had been said with such absolute casualness, as though they had been spoken a thousand times before.

“I…” she whispered. “You… what?”

Sephy frowned. “Well, I thought it was obvious.”

“Yes but… you haven’t… that is…”

“Well, it’s a fact,” Sephy grinned. “So, there you are.”

A nurse came into the waiting area, looking down at a tablet in his hand. “Persephone Lautrec?” he called, and Sephy rose to her feet with tangible relief, Clara doing the same. As they headed towards him, Clara caught her by the good hand and gave it a tight squeeze.

“Well, I love you too,” she said softly. “So, let’s let the nice nurse stitch you up, and then we can talk about the shoot later.”


	39. Chapter 39

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Injured and uncomfortable, Sephy does her best to be professional... but will Clara come to her aid?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope everyone is keeping safe and sane during lockdown!

Sephy looked around herself, trying to quell the twin feelings of anxiety and physical discomfort that were rising in her chest, wrapping themselves around her lungs, and robbing her of the ability to breathe properly. The odd glow of the neon signs around her seemed to fade and intensify, making her feel woozy, and she closed her eyes for a long moment, trying to orient herself.

She’d thought, perhaps naively, that she’d mastered the art of being a model. As she’d been walking the catwalk at Fashion Week, head held high, she’d felt powerful and strong; she’d felt as though all her preconceptions about modelling had fallen away and she had reclaimed her agency. It had seemed easy and effortless; it had been nothing more than standing still and being made to look ethereal and unlike herself, and then doing a bit of walking. It hadn’t been as demanding or as daunting as she’d expected, and she’d allowed herself to think that she could do this; that she could be a model for Clara, and that it would require the bare minimum of effort or exertion on her part.

But now, as Sephy stood in the semi-darkness of her surroundings, leaning uncomfortably against a wall as directed by the overly-handsy photographer in charge of trying to make her look photogenic, she did not feel as though she had mastered anything. She was wearing so much makeup that her face felt stiff, uncomfortable, and somewhat sore; her hair was scratchy with hairspray, crispy against her skin; and she was squeezed into Clara’s clothes, yes, but they were clipped and pinned oddly to try and make them appear more fitted, and each time she moved, pieces of metal dug into her skin and reminded her that she was, for today at least, nothing more than a glorified mannequin.

Underpinning her discomfort was the painful, still-healing laceration on her right hand, which was throbbing uncomfortably now that it had been freed from its bandages. The pain was radiating up her arm and into her torso, rendering her nauseous and vaguely dizzy, and as she arranged herself into what felt like the thousandth pose of the day, the world lurched around her and she slumped back against the wall as a flash went off, the photographer letting out an irritated shout.

“Hey!” he protested, his tone sharp with exasperation. “Come on, seriously? That would’ve been the perfect shot, why did you-”

“I just… need a minute,” Sephy mumbled, closing her eyes and gritting her teeth as she tried to bite back a groan of pain. “Please.”

“Well, we don’t have a minute.”

“I just…”

There was the sound of approaching footsteps, and then a rough hand on her bad arm, and she let out a hiss of complaint, yanking sharply away from the touch and recoiling as her eyes snapped open. The photographer was inches away from her, his expression sour, and she felt her irritation and exhaustion flare in unison.

“Please,” she implored. “Please. I just need to sit down and have some water.”

“Let her,” Clara said authoritatively, striding back into the room with a scowl. “You’re bloody lucky she’s here at all; if you don’t let her sit down, she’s going to faint, and you’re not going to get any more shots. So it’ll be an unproductive day, and you’ll have to explain to your bosses that the reason you didn’t get enough shots is because you refused to allow an injured model time to not pass out, and I’m sure that will go down like a lead balloon.”

“God, you’re…” the photographer looked as though he may be about to speak, but the look on Clara’s face discouraged him. “Fine. Five minutes.”

He stalked away and Clara approached Sephy at once, placing her hand on her shoulder.

“Hey,” Clara smiled encouragingly at her as Sephy slid carefully down the wall until she was sat on the floor in a jumble of clothes, pins, and bulldog clips, no longer caring about the metal digging into her, and put her head between her legs to try and stave off the feeling of faintness. “How you feeling?”

“Shite,” Sephy mumbled, as an assistant approached and handed her a bottle of water. Sephy nodded in thanks and passed it to Clara to open, before taking a long swig of the contents and letting out a grateful sigh. “In pain.”

“You’re doing phenomenally,” Clara dropped into a crouch beside her, reaching over and giving her good arm a gentle squeeze. “I promise.”

“I thought,” Sephy raised an eyebrow wearily, and said in a quiet, warning tone: “That we weren’t doing touchy-feely here.”

“I’m not being touchy feely. I’m checking my model is alright, because she looks like Casper the Friendly Ghost, only whiter.”

Sephy rolled her eyes, letting out a bemused snort. “I’m fine.”

“You’re not fine, so stop being such a bloody hero.”

“Stop being so bloody insightful,” Sephy shot back, but she smiled nonetheless. “I’ll be alright. Sitting helps.”

“Exactly. They could’ve picked somewhere a bit more… able to facilitate you sitting,” Clara wrinkled her nose. “I mean, this place is cool, but… not exactly conducive to you not fainting. I’m not sure about the lighting either; they keep saying they can fix any issues in post but I’d rather there weren’t any to start with.”

“Control freak,” Sephy teased. “It’ll be fine. I’ll look fine.”

“Of course you’ll look fine,” Clara tipped her a wink. “You just might be glowing.”

They looked around them at the venue _The Times_ had chosen. A small, shed-type building packed with glowing neon signs in different rainbow hues, it had seemed the ideal place to shoot Sephy, garbed in Clara’s new brightly-coloured collection, and yet Sephy could understand Clara’s sense of trepidation. As she moved amongst the signs as directed, she could see her skin being illuminated in shades of green or pink or yellow that made her look strange and other-worldly, and she wondered how the final photographs would turn out. Would she look normal? Or would she be rendered a strange, oddly-lit ghost, tinged Simpson-yellow or sickly green?

“I’m not sure about the vision for this,” Sephy admitted quietly, flexing the fingers of her good hand and watching her silver nail varnish catch the light. “What if I end up looking weird?”

“You won’t end up looking weird.”

“I might.”

“I’m fairly sure nothing could make you look weird,” Clara noted. “So, I think you’ll be fine.”

“You’re sweet.”

“I speak only the truth.”

“We both know you’re flattering me,” Sephy raised an eyebrow. “And we both know why.”

“I reject that notion,” Clara protested, feigning indignation. “I very much reject that notion.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Sephy grinned and got back to her feet with care, some of her strength ebbing back to her. “Come on. Let’s get this over with. Go and talk fashion with the nice journo while I make ‘confused and in pain’ look artistic.”

“Alright, alright,” Clara groused, standing up and dusting down Sephy’s outfit. “Knock ‘em dead.”

“Yeah, or maybe don’t,” Sephy rolled her eyes. “He needs to be alive to make me look good.”

“Don’t be difficult.”

“Go on, you,” Sephy laughed, turning her attention back to the photographer, who was surveying them both with a look of extreme contempt. Clara shot him a scowl as she headed away from the set, moving out of sight to continue her interview. “Ready.”

“Sure?” he asked in a bitter tone. “Not in too much pain?”

“Do you want me to bleed on you?” Sephy snapped, her temper finally fraying. “Do you want me to pick out my lovely, carefully-applied stitches and bleed on everything in the general vicinity, because I can do that. I’m sure the clothes and your kit will look really artistic, daubed in my blood.”

“No need to be so bloody dramatic,” he muttered sourly, fiddling with his camera. “I’m just saying…”

“What? You’re just saying what?”

“Most people I work with aren’t so fucking… princessy.”

“I’m terribly sorry that me having an inch-long wound on my hand, which is making me feel so sick I’m actually considering just throwing up to see whether it helps, means I am behaving in a manner which you consider to be ‘princessy.’ I’m really sorry that that makes me unreasonable, or difficult. Next time I have an accident, I will make sure that it’s not a week before an unplanned shoot. I’ll wrap myself in bubble wrap and live in a box, how about that?”

“There’s no need to be so bloody difficult.”

“Difficult?” Sephy let out a sharp laugh. “ _I’m_ the one being difficult? The only things I’ve asked for today is an occasional break, some water, and for you to not touch my bad arm. I haven’t objected to your bad language, or the abysmal way you treat your assistants. I haven’t objected to you talking to me like I’m a moronic halfwit, or you putting your hands all over me under the guise of ‘positioning me.’ So here’s an idea, why don’t you shut up and finish shooting me, or I might have to do a little interview of my own, and let it be known that you’re a rude, creepy piece of work.”

There was a whoop of laughter from the direction in which Clara had vanished, following by a muted round of applause, and the photographer scowled.

“Shut up, Reinette,” he growled. “Fine. We’ll do it your way.”

* * *

By the time they arrived home, Sephy was entirely lost in the pain throbbing from her hand. It was washing over her in waves, dragging her under and rendering her unable to speak, and Clara had to help her over the threshold, before arranging her on the sofa and fetching her a glass of water and two painkillers. As Sephy swallowed them, closing her eyes in a bid to escape the pounding headache that was threatening to overwhelm her, Clara took her good hand and gave it a gentle squeeze.

“I’m sorry,” Clara said quietly. “It was too much, wasn’t it?”

There was no accusation or blame in her tone; it was hardly even a question. There seemed little point in lying.

“Yes,” Sephy mumbled, hating herself for the admission. “And he was…”

“Rude, and obnoxious?” Clara finished, her voice laced with guilt. “Yes, very. I’m sorry for putting you through that.”

“You didn’t put me through anything,” Sephy countered. “I didn’t have to say yes.”

“I shouldn’t have asked,” Clara sighed softly. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Sephy opened her eyes and focused on Clara’s face with considerable difficulty. “Please, don’t be. You didn’t make me do anything I didn’t want to. I just didn’t know how hard it would be.”

“Is there anything I can do?” Clara asked in a gentle tone, and Sephy nodded. “What? Name it.”

“Please, please, get me out of this bloody hair and makeup,” Sephy said pleadingly, and Clara laughed. “I feel like a Barbie doll.”

“I can do that,” Clara said with a smile. “I can absolutely do that. How about a bath?”

“A bath would be really, really nice,” Sephy sighed dreamily at the mere prospect of sliding into a hot, relaxing bath. “Please.”

“Coming right up,” Clara said with a grin, letting go of Sephy’s hand and slipping off in the direction of the bathroom.

Closing her eyes, Sephy took another sip of her water and willed the painkillers to do their job. Re-bandaged, her injured hand was now at least out of sight, and so she concentrated on trying to ignore the pain radiating up her arm and across her chest, thinking instead of the bath that she could now hear running.

“Right,” Clara’s voice said from nearby, and she opened her eyes to find her partner holding up a plastic bag and an elastic band. “Come on. Into the bathroom with you.”

“What’s with the bag?” Sephy asked stupidly, her exhausted brain not quite grasping the function of the item.

“It’s for your hand,” Clara shook it enthusiastically. “So you don’t get it wet.”

“Ah.”

“Bathroom,” Clara said again, more firmly this time, and Sephy got to her feet and traipsed obediently after her into the bathroom. “Stand there.”

Sephy stood obediently in the middle of the floor as Clara removed her jumper and t-shirt for her, before turning her attention to her jeans. Once freed from the large majority of her clothes, Clara directed her to sit on the edge of the bath, and then set to work with a makeup wipe, removing layer after layer of products with the utmost patience. It took three wipes before Sephy felt vaguely like herself again, and then Clara gently massaged cleanser into her face and wiped it away with a clean grey flannel, giving her a reassuring smile once she was done.

“Better?” she asked, and Sephy nodded. “Right. Up.”

Sephy got to her feet again, standing passive and still as Clara wrapped the plastic bag around her hand and then stretched the elastic band around her wrist to render it – hopefully – watertight.

“Feel OK?” Clara asked, as Sephy rolled her wrist experimentally and grimaced at the pain still lancing through her. “Not about to lose all circulation, or anything?”

“No, it’s fine,” she murmured, before startling as Clara reached for her bra strap. “Hey! Wh-”

“You can’t have a bath in your bra and pants,” Clara pointed out, but nonetheless she removed her hands, holding them up in a non-verbal gesture of surrender. “Or I mean, you _could_ , but it might not be very comfortable.”

“Oh,” Sephy swallowed thickly, feeling an irrational flush of embarrassment about the prospect of Clara undressing her. They’d caught glimpses of each other unclothed before now, as they got ready in the mornings or evenings, but never anything prolonged, and never in such an intimate context. “Right. Yeah. Urm. Can you…”

Clara nodded and then reached for her carefully, her hands slow and uncertain as she helped Sephy remove her undergarments. Her eyes never left Sephy’s face for longer than a second, and even then it was only to work the intricacies of the clasp of Sephy’s bra, and Sephy felt a rush of appreciation for her girlfriend, who affixed her with an encouraging smile once she was finally nude. “Better?”

“Better,” Sephy said, but her cheeks flushed all the same as Clara turned away and checked the temperature of the water.

“I know it’s not very full, but do you want to get in while it’s running?” Clara asked, and Sephy nodded mutely, climbing into the tub and feeling an instant sense of relief as the hot water closed over her legs. Leaning her head back, she closed her eyes and slipped downwards until she was entirely below the rim of the bath in a bid to escape Clara’s gaze, still feeling a foolish sense of embarrassment and trying to resist the urge to scoop bubbles towards her with her good hand to hide her nudity.

“Oi,” she was shaken out of her reverie by a bare foot nudging her leg, and her eyes snapped open at once. Clara was stood by the edge of the bath, entirely undressed, and she was nudging Sephy in a bid to make her move. “Budge. I can’t get in if you’re taking up all the space.”

“But you… I… we…” Sephy stammered, unsure where to look, and shifting her legs out of the way at once. “I…”

“You can’t wash your own hair, can you?” Clara pointed out, clambering in and sinking down in the warm water with a contented little sigh. “I’m a necessity. Think of me as like… a living bath accessory.”

“That makes you sound really, really weird.”

“Thanks,” Clara reached for the packet of face wipes and began removing her own makeup. “You’re so kind to me.”

“Well, you’re more interesting that a loofah, or a bath brush.”

“Thanks,” Clara raised her eyebrows. “Good to know. I’ll use that on my reviews page. ‘More interesting than a loofah.’”

“Oh…” Sephy shook her head in exasperation, then used her foot to splash Clara, who shrieked. “Shut up, you.”

“Make me,” Clara challenged, only to find herself splashed again. “Hey!”

“You did say ‘make me.’”

“God, this is the first and last time we do this, if you’re going to bully me.”

“Would you want it any other way?”

“No,” Clara said fondly, smiling at Sephy as she spoke. “Never.”

And then she launched a veritable tidal wave in Sephy’s direction.


	40. Chapter 40

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sephy receives a mysterious, ominous message on Twitter, and has a difficult decision to make.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all the ongoing love! I hope everyone is keeping safe and sane.

Waking up was slow and effortful. Lulled by the warmth of the previous evening’s bath, and the comfortable, soft embrace of the duvet, coupled with the reassuring weight of Clara’s arm where it was slung casually across her hip, Sephy felt sleep cling to her as she struggled back to consciousness, the raw, uncomfortable ache in her hand the only counterpoint to the sense of bliss that was so intent on dragging her back to the world of dreams. Shifting carefully, she reached for her phone with her good hand and pulled it towards herself, unlocking it as she burrowed under the duvet more cosily.

“What you doing?” Clara mumbled by way of complaint, but Sephy only smiled and pressed a kiss to her forehead.

“Go back to sleep,” she murmured softly. “Just seeing what’s going on outside the flat.”

“Well, don’t,” Clara complained blearily. “S’not important.”

“It might be.”

“No,” Clara shook her head as emphatically as she could manage. “You’re important. Out there? S’not important. Go back to sleepy sleep.”

“No,” Sephy laughed. “You go back to sleepy sleep. I’m going to check the news.”

“Twitter. You mean Twitter.”

“Will you stop arguing with me and go back to sleep? Or am I going to have to pull the duvet off you to make you _really_ wake up?”

“Meanie,” Clara groused, but she curled obediently into Sephy’s side and closed her eyes again, burrowing under the duvet and making a soft sound of contentment. Sephy smiled at her affectionately, wrapping her free arm around Clara and settling her injured hand carefully, cautiously, against her shoulder and feeling some of the tension seep away from Clara as sleep reclaimed her.

Rolling her eyes fondly, she opened BBC News and began to scroll, occasionally opening a story to try and interpret a headline or glean a degree of understanding of this political situation or that event, before giving up and opening Twitter. It was a recent and somewhat unwelcome addition to her phone, but Clara had insisted it was necessary for the promotion of the brand, and so here she was, kitted out with a carefully artistic Twitter profile that balanced her modelling commitments and her art – theoretically, at least. In the last few days, there had been an influx of art promotion as several of her pieces had gone on sale at a local gallery, and then there had been the odd tweet about the shoot yesterday, drawing people in and ‘inspiring mystery,’ as Clara put it, accompanying the words with an odd, mysterious expression that was supposed to look enigmatic.

Twitter was, in Sephy’s eyes, a necessary evil. She was selective about who she followed, blocking or muting anything she didn’t want to see, and while she supposed that made her timeline into what was so commonly referred to, with derision, as an echo chamber, it meant she wasn’t wasting precious hours of the day being angry about matters that were nothing to do with her and far outside her sphere of control. She wasn’t going to be drawn into arguments or spats; wasn’t going to be dragged into debates or respond to unkind comments. If she didn’t want to see it or engage with it, she didn’t, and she tried to ignore the constant stream of trolling comments she was already receiving, as though by merely being on the internet and being in the public eye were something that automatically qualified one for an unceasing wave of nastiness. She’d at least got a good laugh out of one the previous evening who had told her that she was too plain-looking to be a model or a muse, and that Clara must have been bribed to take her on.

“Am I bribing you?” Sephy had asked, after reading the tweet aloud to Clara in bed and being met with a snort of derision. “What do you reckon?”

“Oh, definitely. I mean, we had a bath together this evening. That _definitely_ counts as a bribe. Money? Nah, it’s all about bubble bath and nudity.”

Smiling to herself at the memory, she scrolled through her timeline aimlessly, beaming at the occasional videos of cats or dogs that popped up. She was so engrossed in one particularly endearing video of a golden retriever puppy trying to scramble into a dishwasher that it took a moment for her to notice the small notification symbol in the bottom right-hand corner of the app that signalled that she had received a message, and when she finally clicked on it, she felt her heartrate spike at once.

She’d met the sender only a handful of times, but it was enough.

_Danny Pink - @danielpinkmodel – 08:34._

His display photo was a moodily-lit shot of him with his shirt unbuttoned to the waist, and she suppressed the urge to roll her eyes. Opening the message with a degree of trepidation, she found it contained only nine words.

_Need to talk to you. Will you meet me?_

At once, the vague yet ominous message caused anxiety to pool in her stomach. What could he possibly have to talk to her about? What could he possibly have to say that she might need or what to know? Her interest in him was minimal, beyond his role as Clara’s previous muse and part-time love interest, and she wondered what he could want to say to her that was so pressing it required meeting in person. She presumed it was something about Clara, but what could be that urgent was impossible to guess; perhaps he thought she needed issuing with a general warning as to Clara’s character, or he felt that she was likely to be corrupted by Clara’s lifestyle.

 _Why?_ she sent back, watching as three dots appeared almost at once, indicating that he was typing. Whatever it was, it was apparently pressing enough to require his immediate attention.

_@danielpinkmodel: I need to tell you something._

_@persephonelautrec: About Clara?_

_@danielpinkmodel: I need to tell you something. Will you meet me?_

_@persephonelautrec: Why?_

_@danielpinkmodel: Because it’s important. Meet me at Speakers’ Corner, Hyde Park at 10._

_@persephonelautrec: Why should I?_

_@danielpinkmodel: You know why._

Sephy locked her phone and looked over at Clara, who was now sleeping peacefully at her side. She had a niggling suspicion what Danny might be referring to, and wondered what he would do if she failed to show up at the allotted hour. Could she risk it? Could she risk him exposing everything she had fought so hard to keep secret? It wasn’t worth it; an hour or so’s unpleasantness for the sake of preserving this peace was a small price to pay.

Carefully, she sat up, swinging her legs out of bed and trying to disturb Clara the minimum amount possible. There was still a soft noise of complaint, so she reached over and smoothed down her girlfriend’s hair, murmuring quiet reassurances as she did so.

“Go back to sleep, love,” she whispered, Clara seeming to soothe at the sound of her voice. “I’ll be back soon.”

She dressed in a hurry and then scrawled a vague note about popping to the shops, leaving it beside Clara on the pillow before grabbing her bag and heading for the door.

Anxiety dogged her every step as she headed to the Tube, her hands shaking so hard that she shoved them carefully into her pockets to disguise the tremors, before swearing almightily as her bad hand was pressed against the fleecy lining of her coat pocket. As she swiped her Oyster card, headed down to the platforms, and boarded a train, she fought to keep her breathing level, wondering over and over what Danny was going to say. As the stations passed by in a blur of sound and colour, she tried to concentrate on them in a bid to keep herself calm, but still she felt her heartrate spike; still she couldn’t keep herself from worrying. Changing lines, she watched the stops flick by until she reached her destination, disembarking and beginning to trudge up the escalators to the world outside.

She had been to Speakers’ Corner only once, but she remembered the way, and as she approached her destination, she felt her pulse accelerate until she was sure people around her could sense her nervousness. Shaking so hard that she was practically vibrating, she approached with a sense of trepidation, looking around and finally locating Danny sat on a bench nearby, smirking at one of the speakers over the top of his sunglasses. He was arranged artfully on the bench, limbs spread akimbo in a carefully-constructed pose that screamed ‘look at me’, and Sephy wondered if that was the difference between what she was doing and real models; real models seemed to know how to take the elegance and beauty of the catwalk and bring it to their everyday lives in a way that she could never hope to achieve.

“Ah,” Danny said upon catching sight of her, and he got to his feet with an effortless, loping grace. “You came.”

“Of course I came. You didn’t give me much choice.”

“Of course I gave you a choice.”

“‘You know why’?” Sephy quoted at him, something inside her snapping. “What gives you the right to make threats like that? What gives you the right to use my life and my past against me?”

“Your past?” he arched an eyebrow with curiosity. “I merely meant your present. You’re shagging her, aren’t you?”

“That’s not…” Sephy blinked hard, disconcerted as she realised that he hadn’t meant what she’d thought he’d meant; he’d meant something far more innocuous and but still no less damning. “We… we haven’t…”

“You haven’t?” if anything, his look of incredulity intensified. “Well, how strange. She’s managed to contain herself for this long? Goodness, that surprises me. She was all over me like a rash; one might get ideas about the fact that she hasn’t been the same with you.”

“Shut up.”

“What?” he asked with a smirk, leering at her over the top of his sunglasses. “I’m just saying that perhaps she’s not quite as liberally minded as you think she is, or she would have-”

“It’s none of your bloody business, alright?” Sephy snapped, and he seemed taken aback by her sudden change in tone. “What we do behind closed doors is nobody’s business but ours. It’s not the press’s, it’s not the internet’s, and it’s certainly not yours.”

“Oh, she’s _feisty_ ,” Danny snickered, and something about his very demeanour made Sephy want to slap him. “I just want you to remember what she’s like, is all. She’ll get bored and she’ll drop you, and then she’ll pick you up again. And then she’ll find something or some _one_ more exciting, and then she’ll drop you again. And then she’ll take one too many pills or get too shitfaced to remember that you’re meant to be not talking, and she’ll call you up and you’ll fuck in a bathroom or an alleyway or somewhere equally sordid, and then you’ll be back on again, until she gets sober or clean for long enough to remember she hates you, and-”

“You know, I do distinctly recall telling you to shut up.”

“Don’t you want to know what I’ve got to say?”

“Is this not it?” Sephy raised her eyebrows. “I was assuming I’d been dragged here for some kind of gloating-fest, or whatever the hell it is that you seem intent on doing.”

“Oh, no,” Danny’s smirk intensified. “I’m here to tell you I’ve signed with Melissa Saxon.”

“You’ve… what?” Sephy felt a stab of horror at invocation of the name.

“She was offering good money, and the exposure will be massive,” Danny tipped her a wink that she couldn’t and didn’t want to interpret. “Besides, I needed a job, and most people aren’t inclined to hire me, given my reputation.”

“But she was?”

“Oh, she very much was. The fact that it’ll annoy Clara only served as… well, catnip, I suppose.”

“Why would it annoy Clara?”

“Hasn’t she told you?” he let out a yelp of laughter. “Well, I’m sure you’ll find out anyway. They’ve been rivals for a few years, and I think there might have been some sordid hate-fucks in there somewhere, but I haven’t bothered asking for too much detail.” He studied her expression carefully, and she forced herself to keep a straight face. “Damn. You’re hard to ruffle.”

“Why do you hate Clara so much?” she asked flatly. “Tell me, why?”

“Because she used me,” Danny spat, his tone suddenly furious. “She used me, and she made me feel like shit for months.”

“And you let her?”

“I wanted to be _someone_. I wanted to be _something_ to someone. And she kept teasing me with it; kept making me think I could really have it all – her, the career, the fame. But then at the last moment… she would snatch it away. She’d make me feel like nothing.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Why? You aren’t her. It doesn’t mean anything, coming from _you._ ”

“No, but… I’m sorry all the same,” Sephy sighed. “Do you really have to do this? Sign with Missy?”

“Oh, absolutely,” he grinned, evidently pleased with himself. “And you really can’t tell Clara, can you? Or she’ll know you’ve been sneaking around. So she’ll get to see my massive exposure very soon.”

“Danny…” Sephy pleaded. “Is there anything I can do to stop you?”

“Nothing whatsoever.”

“You’re a cruel person.”

“This is what she does to you,” he snarled. “This is what that woman does to you. So if you’re ready for this to be your future… by all means, carry on with her. But you might want to do some soul-searching first.”


	41. Chapter 41

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Unsettled by her meeting with Danny, Sephy questions her future with Clara.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another week of lockdown, another chapter...

Sephy scrolled through the webpage she was reading with laser-sharp focus, feeling her heart sink as it confirmed precisely what the previous five sites had also stated. On the table in front of her, a latte was steaming quietly in the stifling air of an overcrowded Starbucks, but her focus remained entirely on her phone, unable to drag her attention away.

She’d walked away from Speakers’ Corner almost an hour ago, trudging along in a daze with her hands in her pockets as she ruminated on what Danny had said. His words had been an echo of what he had said to her after her first casting; the same cryptic message he had delivered to her then, but this time spoken with far more vitriol and far less reservation. His loathing for Clara radiated off him in waves, oozing across the space between them and imbuing her with doubt.

Had his experience been entirely the same as hers, especially in the earlier days? She’d wanted to ask him; wanted to try to ascertain if what she was feeling was the mirror image of what he had; wanted to try to ascertain whether he had experienced the same soft, quiet moments in contrast to the same incidents of utter stupidity and hedonism. But in asking, she would make herself and Clara vulnerable; in asking, she would reveal more of their relationship to him than she was strictly comfortable with; and she had the oddest sense that he was just waiting for a slip-up, or for her to impart more than she should strictly say. She both wanted to trust him and yet knew she should not; his bitterness was clouding his judgement and filling him with hatred, and hatred made people do foolish things.

That he despised Clara was evident. Sephy did not doubt that he had been treated poorly by her now-girlfriend; it was documented on the websites which she was ploughing through now. Clara, drunk and shouting at paparazzi; Clara, drunk and shouting at Danny; Clara, drunk; Clara, drunk; Clara, possibly something more than drunk. Danny, always in the background of the photos, drawing most of Clara’s ire in front of the photographers regardless of what he was doing, or in some cases not doing.

Could that be her? Would she end up the same way – relegated to the background of Clara’s life, nothing more than a thing to shout at? She hadn’t seen that side of Clara; hadn’t experienced it for herself, and yet she felt a niggling sense of fear that at some point, her girlfriend might snap, or might feel comfortable enough to cease concealing her ‘true’ nature. The thought felt disingenuous; she wanted to believe that Clara was a good person, and yet Danny painted a picture of her that Sephy did not recognise or like. He and the media portrayed Clara as selfish, spiteful and unkind, and yet Sephy knew that while she could be all of those things, they came with alcohol and other substances; they came with stress and uncertainty; they did not come to pass on a day-to-day basis.

As much as Sephy wanted to believe Danny, she also wanted to believe Clara. It was overwhelming, attempting to balance the supposedly-empirical evidence that came from the tabloid press, or from the subjective viewpoints of both guilty parties. She didn’t want to disbelieve that Danny had been treated badly, and yet she desperately wanted to believe that Clara had changed; desperately wanted to think that things would be different for the two of them. She was not naïve enough to think herself so powerful that she could change Clara’s very being, very manner, and yet something about the designer seemed different when she was with Sephy; she seemed happier and relaxed in a way that very seldom seemed to come to pass in the photos splashed across the internet.

Sephy knew that Danny had not deserved his treatment; knew that his feelings of being sidelined and ignored and picked up and put down were entirely valid. She knew how it felt to experience such emotions; knew how it felt to be a kind of novelty that people felt they could interact with when it suited them. Her father had been the same type of person as Danny purported Clara to be; interested in her only when he felt like it, and otherwise disinterest, distant, and disengaged. She was not Jenny; she didn’t have the same golden glow over her that her sister did. It was not her fault, nor Jenny’s, nor her father’s; they had simply been too alike to ever see eye to eye. Perhaps that was the case with Clara and Danny; two contrasting personalities that were simply destined to clash.

Would she perhaps end up clashing with Clara one day in the same manner? Would there be a sudden moment when she realised they were incompatible, or would it happen so slowly that she would barely notice? She wished she’d been able to ask Danny these questions; wished she’d been able to trust him enough to have a frank, open discussion with him about Clara. And yet he was so biased by his experiences, so bitter and angry, that she knew it would never happen; he would never be able to speak about her without growing so furious that it clouded each word he said.

Over and over, all Sephy could wonder, was whether the same thing might happen to her. Would she one day be so angry at Clara that she could only communicate about her by snarling and spitting the words, in the same way that Danny had done? Would she one day not even want to hear Clara’s name? Would she disavow every moment they had spent together? The thought of it pained her. She had never given much thought to a future with Clara beyond the immediate; beyond tomorrow – how could she, when she was hiding so much from her and about her – and yet now, she allowed herself to dream. Now, she allowed herself to wonder whether it _would_ be a dream, or whether it would become a nightmare.

She was taking so many risks by being with Clara; she was lying about so much and with such frequency that she was starting to feel increasingly trapped by the web of her own lies. She wanted it all, when she knew she could never have it; wanted her family to support her and love her but also yearned for Clara, who she knew would be furious if the truth ever came to light. How could she carry on like this? How could she continue to lie, continue to deceive, continue to omit truths? How would anyone ever forgive her for what she was doing? There could be no positive resolution to this; there could be no happy ending, surely. When the truth came out, there would be nothing but betrayal and malice, and lives blown apart. Her own selfishness and greed had ensnared her in this tangle of half-truths, and she couldn’t begin to fathom how to extricate herself from it.

Perhaps she could end things with Clara? It would break her heart to do it, but if it spared everyone else pain in the long run then perhaps she could endure it. If it weren’t for the fact that she knew it would break Clara’s heart as well as her own, perhaps she might even consider it, but the thought of utterly destroying the woman she loved was intolerable and she knew she could never be strong enough to do so. Despite it all, she still wanted to protect Clara; still wanted to make her feel safe and happy and loved.

She sighed heavily and looked down at her phone again, knowing that the information laid out there would only cause harm to her partner. From what she had gleaned on her quest for knowledge, she knew that Danny had been Clara’s kryptonite, yes, but that Melissa Saxon was… well, Sephy didn’t have an appropriate metaphor, but the designer’s history with Clara stretched back over many years, seeming to commence while Clara was still at Sephy’s father’s label. Seeing her father’s name in print beside Clara’s was enough to make Sephy’s heart hurt uncomfortably, and she’d scrolled through the articles with a feeling of rising nausea, trying to piece together the story from a selection of sleazy tabloids and salubrious gossip sites.

From what she’d established, Melissa Saxon had been a friend of her father’s once – many years before Sephy had even been an idea, back when he’d been an impoverished student in Glasgow and she’d been a classmate of his at art school. They’d risen to prominence at roughly the same time, but Melissa had become an _enfant terrible_ , enjoying being provocative and controversial, while John Smith had tried to break boundaries, yes, but never outside the world of fashion. Their friendship had crumbled into dust under the pressure of the fashion industry, but Melissa had experienced a sense of renewed interest in her father when he had taken Clara under his wing, with what had seemed to be a fixation on the young student developing. John had taken umbrage to her over-interest in his protégé, barbs had been exchanged, mud had been slung, and the entire thing seemed to have been buried, until Clara had broken away from John’s brand and started her own label. Then the melodramatic feud appeared to have been reignited by Clara, no longer kept in check by the steadying influence of John Smith, and over the years there were several histrionic tantrums, disagreements, and reconciliations. Sephy was doing her utmost to overlook the words ‘hate fucks,’ as Danny had so tactlessly put it, that were haunting her, but that there was a chemistry between the two women was undeniable.

Sephy felt, irrationally, a flash of jealousy as she looked down at a photo of Clara and Melissa, tumbling out of a fashion event and making such intensely smouldering eye contact that it was a wonder the image had been approved for publication. Melissa Saxon appeared to have the same magnetic pull that Clara did, and now Danny had been pulled into her orbit in lieu of Clara herself.

That his signing with Missy would infuriate Clara was undeniable. That finding out the truth about Sephy would break Clara’s heart was also undeniable, and Sephy sighed heavily, wondering how precisely she could reconcile all she had learned that morning; wondering how she could move forward with her relationship with Clara when she was burdened with so much information and so many lies. How could she pretend to be ignorant of all she now knew? How could she pretend to be someone else for the rest of her life?

She sighed again, looking over at her now-tepid coffee but nonetheless taking a long sip of it. In her hand, her phone began to ring, and she groaned internally as she saw the Caller ID. Answering the call before she could consider doing otherwise, she adopted her brightest tone.

“Hi, babe.”

“Hey,” Clara’s voice was still thick with sleep, but it was warm and happy in a way that made Sephy’s heart lurch. “Where are you?”

“Just in Starbucks at the moment, then I’m going to Waitrose.”

“Priorities.”

“Oh, you know me,” Sephy forced herself to smile. “Do you want anything from the shops?”

“Could you grab something for dinner tonight? Something easy? I don’t want to have to spend hours cooking, and I fancy something really easy so we can eat on the sofa.”

“How about pizza?” Sephy asked, trying to ignore the image of curling up cosily on the sofa with Clara and how appealing it seemed. “Does that work?”

“Pizza sounds great. Whatever you want on top, just no olives or anchovies. That’s all I ask.”

“Got it. I’ll see you in a bit, alright?”

“Alright,” Clara said, then added in a small voice: “Love you.”

Sephy’s heart melted, even as she cursed herself for being so reeled in by this infuriating, complex woman. “I love you too,” she said softly. “Bye.”

She hung up and closed her eyes, putting her phone in her lap and squeezing her good hand into a fist until her nails bit into her palm. She was absolutely confused, absolutely overwhelmed… and absolutely, irredeemably in love.

And absolutely, heart-stoppingly terrified.


	42. Chapter 42

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clara makes a request of Sephy; one Sephy has been dreading...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope everyone is keeping relatively well! xx

Clara was so engrossed in her task that she didn’t notice the soft sound of the front door, or the loud rustling of plastic bags that signalled Sephy’s arrival home. It wasn’t until her partner stepped into the kitchen, laden down with bags of shopping in her good hand, that she was jolted out of her reverie, straightening up from her position beside the cooker and beaming at Sephy fondly.

“Hi,” she said with genuine warmth, before gesturing to the laden plates that stood on the worktop, as well as the frying pan that was currently softly sizzling atop the hob with the final pancake she’d manage to scrape together from the remains of the batter. “I made brunch.”

There was an expression on Sephy’s face that she couldn’t decipher – moreover, didn’t _want_ to decipher – but as Sephy looked between her and the food, her mouth quirked into a smile and some of her previous uncertainty seemed to melt away.

“You didn’t have to do that,” she said fondly, although her gaze was fixed on the food. “We could’ve gone out.”

“I wanted to,” Clara gave a casual little shrug, deciding not to mention the first batch of pancakes, which had been an unmitigated disaster and had been immediately consigned to the bin. “I thought it’d be nice.”

“It _is_ nice,” Sephy smiled at her, setting the bags of groceries on the side and beginning to unpack them one-handed, grimacing a little as she did so. “Give me a hand with this, yeah? Some of this needs to go into the fridge; everything else can wait.”

“Sure,” Clara kept one eye on the pancake cooking on the hob as she began to ferry yoghurts, fruit and fresh pasta to the fridge, stacking it neatly inside and shuffling items aside to make room. “Was it busy?”

“No more than usual,” Sephy grimaced, holding her injured hand out at an awkward angle and flexing the fingers with visible discomfort. “Ow.”

“Is it alright?” Clara asked at once, tucking her hair behind her ears and crossing to Sephy’s side, looking down at the bandage as her hands settled lightly on either side of her partner’s bad hand, cradling it tenderly. “Do you want a painkiller?”

“No, it’s fine, it just didn’t enjoy… you know, being mucked about yesterday.”

“I’m sorry,” Clara sighed, feeling a lingering pang of guilt. “I didn’t think… I really thought they’d respect you when you said you needed it supported and wrapped; I didn’t think Lee would make you-”

“It’s fine,” Sephy said quickly. “It’s not your fault, he was just a dickhead.”

“He was, rather,” Clara grimaced at the recollection of him; she knew of his reputation, she’d felt her heart sink when the _Times_ had intimated that he would be doing the shoot. “Still, he could’ve been slightly nicer about it. You should’ve followed through on your threat and bled all over him and the set. That would’ve shut him up.”

“It would’ve looked a bit…” Sephy made a face. “I don’t know, a bit like _Carrie._ ”

“Do you _have_ that much blood?”

“No, but I’m sure I could’ve hammed it up to look like I do,” Sephy tipped her a wink. “We may have missed an opportunity. You could’ve got a reputation for hiring weird, borderline-vampiric models.”

“You’re the least vampiric-looking person I’ve ever met. Aren’t vampires usually really pale, with black hair?”

“Don’t be vampirist.”

“That’s not a word,” Clara stuck her tongue out, stashing a carton of almond milk in the fridge before returning to the hob and conducting a silent appraisal of the pancake sizzling there. “Or a concept.”

“I could be a vampire. You’d have no idea.”

“I might’ve noticed you biting me in the night."

“You might not have,” Sephy reasoned, then added with a smirk: “I mean, you haven’t yet.”

“You’re so weird,” Clara said with fond exasperation, tipping out the final pancake and then sliding one plate towards Sephy. “There’s toppings on the table, vampire girl. Sorry, none of it is my blood.”

“I’m sure Nutella will be a suitable alternative,” Sephy said with a wide-eyed, martyr-like expression. “If not… well, we might ruin the carpets.”

“My girlfriend, the really rubbish vampire,” Clara said, rolling her eyes at the mental image, and taking her plate. “Come on, idiot. Eat your brunch.”

“Wait, isn’t there coffee?”

“If you want coffee, _you_ can make it, but haven’t you just had Starbucks?”

“Yes, why?”

“Because you’re going to be bouncing off the bloody ceilings if you have any more coffee.”

“What if I have decaf?”

“Hm,” Clara pretended to mull over the idea. “I suppose that’d be fine.”

“Thanks, Mum,” Sephy stuck her tongue out at Clara, who merely rolled her eyes. “Can you take my plate?”

“Sure,” Clara stuck her hand out for the proffered item and headed out to the lounge, setting both plates down on the table and taking a seat. Reaching for the jar of Nutella, she spread a layer over her stack of pancakes and then began to arrange concentric circles of banana neatly on top, her brow furrowed in concentration as she worked on ensuring the circles were entirely perfect. She jumped when a mug of coffee was placed beside her, Sephy’s hand settling on her shoulder as the cup entered her field of vision.

“Hey, I don’t actually bite,” Sephy hummed gently, leaning down and pressing a kiss to her temple. “Can you make my pancake look just as pretty while I make myself a coffee?”

“I thought that was what you were doing.”

“No, what I was doing was making _you_ one, because I’m nice like that.”

“Well, hurry up, or your brunch is going to be cold.”

“You really, really sound like my mother,” Sephy said, ruffling Clara’s hair and eliciting a yelp of disapproval. “I’ll be quick, alright?”

“You’d better be,” Clara shot back. “I wanted to enjoy a nice, quiet brunch _with_ my girlfriend, not with my girlfriend diving in and out of the kitchen.”

“I’ll be right back,” Sephy promised, before reaching down and plucking a slice of banana from atop Clara’s pancake stack and then half-running back into the kitchen. Clara smiled after her, shaking her head good-naturedly, and wondering how exactly she had come to deserve someone who was quite so ebulliently full of warmth, compassion and humour. After Danny, she had felt unworthy of such a person; after Danny, she had felt sure that she was condemned to spend her life with sycophantic hangers-on. And yet Sephy had never seemed bothered by any of the fame or the trappings of celebrity; Sephy had never seemed interested in the glitz or glamour or the reputations that came alongside Clara’s place in the fashion industry.

She could hear Sephy now, humming a song over the low thrum of the coffeemaker, and she wished suddenly that she could see her, although she knew what she’d be doing; she’d be putting groceries away in the cupboards with careful precision, and dancing as she did so – silly little steps, approximations of things she’d seen on TV or online. It was a habit that Clara had initially found rather disconcerting, but now she smiled at the thought of it. The night before their shoot, she’d even joined in; the two of them spinning around each other in the kitchen until they were both giddy with laughter and holding onto each other for balance, stability and safety.

That was what Sephy was, Clara realised. Stability and safety; a familiar thing, a comfortable thing. Their days, holed up together at Clara’s, were full of warmth and shared laughter, and she felt safer now than she had for years, free from the pressure of external expectations and liberated from the prospect of having to be someone she wasn’t. She could be honest and open; she could be messy and dramatic; she knew that Sephy wasn’t going anywhere. She would simply remain, open-hearted and patient, and offer reassurance and empathy as needed. It was an odd feeling, to know that she was in such utterly safe hands; an odd feeling to know that regardless of what she might do, this person – this fantastical, madcap person – wasn’t going to leave. Wasn’t going to forsake her. Wasn’t going to abandon her for love nor money.

“Excuse me,” Sephy’s voice cut into her reverie, and she shook her head hard. “I thought I asked for a similar work of art on my pancakes.”

“Oh,” Clara blinked as Sephy dropped into the seat opposite her, mug of coffee clutched in her good hand. “Sorry, I was miles away. Besides, you’re the artist.”

“This is true,” Sephy reached for the jar of Nutella. “But I don’t usually work with chocolate and hazelnut spread."

“You should. It’d be really innovative and delicious.”

“Albeit messy,” Sephy began smearing it haphazardly over her pancakes. “But still, you’re right: delicious.”

“When are you going to let me see your place?” Clara asked, the question occurring to her out of nowhere. “I mean, not that it’s not nice having you here, but I’d like to see where you live, and your studio.”

“Oh, it’s nothing special,” Sephy said quickly, something in her expression becoming hard and closed-off in a manner that Clara didn’t dare question. “Really quite boring, actually.”

“So, let me be the judge of that.”

“Nah,” Sephy shrugged, scattering banana slices over her brunch and then reaching for her mug and taking a sip. She was attempting an air of studious casualness, but her hand was shaking, and she set her mug back down and flashed a terse smile. “It’s nothing exciting. Puts your place to shame. I’d be embarrassed to have you there.”

“I don’t care if you live in a shack, to be honest. I just want to see what you like, how you’ve decorated… how you live. That’s all.”

“Clara, I…” Sephy sighed heavily, stabbing a forkful of pancake and shoving it in her mouth. She chewed on it thoughtfully, taking her time, and then swallowed before continuing: “It really isn’t anything special or exciting. Plus it’s probably an inch-deep in dust.”

“So, have a whip-round with the hoover, and then I’ll drop by. I want to see your work, and _where_ you work. Not to mention where you live.”

“You vastly overestimate my talents.”

“Do I?” Clara asked, arching an eyebrow, then admitting: “I’ve seen your portfolio. It’s very good.”

“How have you…”

“I Googled you,” Clara confessed, her cheeks colouring. “After the first time we met. There was something… oh, I don’t know, you seemed familiar in some way, or you seemed… I don’t know, it was like you were calling to me. Is that lame? That’s probably lame. But I looked you up, and I saw your work, and it was… really bloody good. Why haven’t you talked about it more? I thought this would be the ideal chance for you – all this press, all this publicity.”

“I didn’t think I was allowed,” Sephy said, blinking at her in confusion. “And I haven’t had time to do anything interesting. The last mural I did was… god, I don’t even know. No one wants to give me the space anymore; they want all this graffiti-type stuff, and that’s very much not me.”

“Why don’t I see if I could find you somewhere?”

“Because-” Sephy began sharply, before her tone softened and she chewed on her lip for a moment before continuing. “I don’t want to be doing things off the back of your star. I want my star to be… well, _my_ star.”

“It wouldn’t be off the back of my star,” Clara frowned, stung by the tone. “It would just be asking if anyone had a wall, that’s all. You could speak to them; you could set it all up. I was just… I just want to help.”

“I know,” Sephy sighed, running a hand through her hair. “I know, sorry. I just… I don’t want people to think I’m only with you to boost my career, or my work. I don’t want people to even know, if I’m honest; not because I’m embarrassed! God, don’t look at me like that – not because I’m ashamed of you, but because I want to be my own person, not just ‘the designer’s girlfriend.’ So, if you ask…”

“I wasn’t going to say that anyway,” Clara said in a small voice, irrationally hurt by the words. “I…”

“Hey,” Sephy said softly, reaching over and laying her good hand over Clara’s. “I just don’t want to be accused of exploiting you. I don’t want people to get the wrong idea. You know why I’m with you. You know I love you, and I cherish you. But other people won’t know that, or believe that; they won’t want to, because most people are deeply, deeply shitty and think the worst of other humans. So I don’t want them thinking badly of me, or you; I don’t want people to think I’m some kind of gold-digger who just wants exposure or celebrity. I don’t want any of that. I don’t care if tomorrow, it all comes crashing down. I just want you.”

“Oh,” Clara said thickly, swallowing the lump in her throat. “I…”

“I want you, and I love you, and I don’t want other people messing that up,” Sephy gave her hand a reassuring squeeze. “And I love these pancakes, and I don’t want other people knowing that you make them, or you’re going to be highly in demand as a chef, not a designer.”

Clara let out a small laugh. “I suppose,” she reasoned. “Let me ask around about the wall though. I want to see your work out in the real world, not just on a screen.”

“Fine,” Sephy acquiesced, shoving another bite of pancake into her mouth. “You can ask around about the wall. Just don’t expect a mural of your face as thanks.”

“Well,” Clara grinned. “There’s an idea…”


	43. Chapter 43

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sephy takes steps to ensure her secret remains buried...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another week... continued lockdown! Hope everyone is doing well!

Clara had been maddeningly persistent in her desire to see Sephy’s home. She’d nagged and wheedled and pleaded about it for most of the day, and it had taken all of Sephy’s willpower to avoid snapping at her; instead, she’d managed only to delay the inevitable by a few hours, and buy herself some time in which to set things in order. She’d agreed to go home that evening and spend the time ‘tidying up’ in preparation for Clara to visit the next morning, and now here she was, circling each room of her house and searching for anything incriminating that needed to be consigned to… well, somewhere out of the way; the specifics evaded her.

“Shit,” Sephy muttered, reaching for a nearby picture frame that contained an enlarged photo of her, River and Jenny, and stashing it carefully in the box she was sliding along with her foot. She thought she’d found most of the damn photographs by now, and yet there were still ones that her eyes slid past automatically without noticing; still things she didn’t notice, acclimatised as she was to seeing them every day. She’d checked the walls twice, so she was certain that she’d removed all evidence from those, but she was now focused on shelves and tables and any other place she could possibly place a photo frame, and her next task would be clearing out the studio.

She sighed, plonking herself down on the sofa and looking around at the thin layer of dust that coated the coffee table, TV and shelves. There was still the prospect of cleaning, once she’d stashed everything that might reveal her true identity to Clara, and changing the bedsheets, and stashing the pictures somewhere safe, and…

She groaned aloud, putting her head in her hands and feeling a surge of hopelessness. Why had she agreed to this? Why had Clara insisted on being so irritatingly stubborn, demanding to see her home like it was a God-given right? Her home had always been her sanctuary; a safe place, where she didn’t have to worry about the two spheres of her life – Clara and her family – intersecting. And now… now it was simply causing her stress, as she struggled to strip it of anyone and anything that might reveal her secrets, and she looked down into the cardboard box, at her sister and River’s faces, and uttered a silent apology to them. She couldn’t help but feel a pang of guilt at hiding them away like this, but it was an unfortunate necessity; she shuddered at the thought of Clara’s reaction to learning the truth now.

“Right,” she said aloud, to no one in particular, before getting to her feet and looking around herself. She’d already emptied upstairs of any photographs, and now she’d snagged this last one from the lounge, she was reasonably sure that she was done. Closing the cardboard box, she pushed it into the hall with her foot, loathe to attempt lifting it and aggravating her injured hand, and shoved it into the storage cupboard under the stairs, piling shoes and various art materials in front of and atop it until it looked somewhat camouflaged and not at all appealing, either to herself or strangers.

Padding through to the kitchen, she flicked on the kettle before stepping into her studio and steeling herself, then starting to skim through the canvases piled against one wall. Looking over at her mural, still depicting an alien landscape despite all her planning and conceptualising for something more space-themed, she couldn’t help but feel a twinge of regret; there had been so much she’d wanted to do and paint and create; so much that she’d had to let fall by the wayside in her support for Clara and the time spent with her. Not that she begrudged Clara any of their time spent together – quite the opposite – but she lamented having let her own vocation slide in favour of indulging the designer’s whims. Clara had been right – she shouldn’t let herself lose sight of who she was, and perhaps letting her partner ask around about mural spaces would provide her with some of the inspiration and motivation she needed so desperately.

Looking down at the canvas she had found herself subconsciously pausing at, she realised it bore the portrait of her father she had worked on all those weeks before. She’d meant to gift it to River and Jenny; it was as complete as she could make it, but she’d somehow not found the time to make the presentation, knowing it would mean tears on at least one side, and an explanation of how she’d come to be drawing a man she so often disavowed or cursed. Pulling it free of the stack of artworks, she propped it up against the wall and sank down on her haunches, resting her fingertips against the edge of the canvas and staring into the warmth of her father’s eyes; the warmth that had so often been absent from his gaze when he looked at her, but she’d imagined for the sake of the portrait.

At the time of his death, it had been a long, long time since he’d looked at her like that. A long time since he’d looked at her, period, but she’d come to view herself as a particularly irritating thorn in his side; an irritation; something he wanted to forget. She’d been the problem child, not because she’d been particularly ill-behaved or rude or naughty, but because she’d reminded him of a woman he wanted to forget. She wasn’t Jenny, golden-haired and the spitting image of River. She wasn’t River, vivacious and full of warmth and compassion. She had been a serious-eyed and sad child, trapped in a kind of uncertain limbo between the death of her mother and the advent of her new family; unsure whether to be happy or to grieve or to act out and push everyone away. She’d tried that once; River had made it clear, in no uncertain terms, that it wouldn’t be tolerated and that it wouldn’t serve any purpose, and she’d not tried again. There hadn’t seemed much point; River was there to stay, and Sephy had been secretly grateful of that. River had made her father into a happier man; brought laughter and life back to him, and while Sephy had remained on the fringes of his sphere of interest, she was pleased to see him play the doting dad to Jenny.

It had pained her too, of course. To see him lift Jenny onto his shoulders, laughing as he did so; to see him holding her hand; to see her sitting on his lap as he read her this or that story, putting on the voices and getting far, far too into it. To see him attend each event he possibly could, work-permitting – parents evenings, ballet shows, sports days – and yet all the while, Sephy had been uninteresting to him; an afterthought; someone and something he didn’t know how to face, and didn’t seem to want to. She alone had inherited his creative flair; she alone wanted to follow him into the field of the arts; and yet his encouragement had been perfunctory and forced; his interest in her limited.

There had been good times; she still remembered with fondness those times when he seemed to forget who she was and who he was, and treat her like a daughter rather than something to be skirted around and avoided. Those moments had been rare, and she clung to them now with fond nostalgia. Sometimes it had been as simple as a trip to McDonalds with Jenny, the younger girl’s hand in hers, her sister swinging from it with excitement, and she’d wondered how they looked to strangers. The tall, gangly Scottish designer, and his golden haired daughters; the pinnacle of contrast as they sat in the bright fast-food restaurant and shovelled chips into their mouths, letting out shouts of laughter, Jenny clambering onto Sephy’s lap and demanding to play with her Happy Meal toys.

Sephy smiled at the memory, her expression tinged with sadness, and skimmed a thumb over the edge of the canvas.

“You’d really, really like Jenny now, Dad,” she said aloud, sitting properly on the floor and wrapping her free arm around her knees. “She’s tall, like you, and she’s so athletic. She’s got a good job, and she works hard; she looks after me and River. She misses you a lot, but she’s doing her best to just get on with things… she doesn’t let anyone say she can’t do anything. She’s too bloody stubborn for that – just like us. She doesn’t know the meaning of the word ‘no.’”

She felt a touch foolish, sitting here and speaking aloud to the portrait as though it might speak back; might offer some sage advice or acknowledgement. Nonetheless, it brought her a degree of comfort; all the reassurance of being able to converse with her father, with none of the worry about him not listening, or finding her dull, or judging her.

“I ended up in the world of fashion. I didn’t mean to, really, it was just supposed to be a silly little thing… but I went to a casting and it was for… well, it turned out it was for Clara. _Your_ Clara. And Dad, she’s… god, she’s brilliant, she really is. She’s so funny and talented and kind, but she’s messed up and scared too. I don’t know how to deal with her, not all the time, but I know I love her. Is that wrong of me? I don’t know what happened with the two of you, but I love her. That’s probably weird or creepy; she’d definitely hate me if she knew who I was, but she… she really loves me. She really, really does, and I’m having to lie to her every single day, but how could I tell her the truth? How could I make her understand that this is all just… I don’t know, a weird trick of fate? She’d despise me; she’d think I was the most awful person alive, and she’d be right. I _am_. Because I should never have fallen for her, but I didn’t have a choice… she’s just… just _magnetic_ and electric and it’s impossible not to love her. I understand that now, Dad.”

She paused.

“I’m an artist now, too. A proper one. Not that that’s important, I know that; but I am – people like my work, they buy my work. And that’s still weird to me… that someone wants to give me money in exchange for something I’ve made. It’s endlessly bloody weird. And it’s even weirder that now people want to give me money in exchange for me looking pretty in their clothes or for their magazines. I’ve done photoshoots, Dad. For the _Times_ , and I’m going to be in _Vogue_ and _Elle._ God, if you could see me now… the silly little teenager who didn’t want owt to do with fashion. You’d laugh and laugh and laugh. And you might even be proud. Just a little bit. Just a tiny, tiny little bit. I know you’d find it hard to say, but maybe you would.”

She shook her head then, hard, as though seeking to clear it, and realised her eyes were full of unshed tears.

“God, talking to a picture. I’m really cracking up, aren’t I, Dad? Though it could be worse… you could start talking back, and then where would we be?”

She snorted at the thought, then stood up and lifted the portrait away from the wall, leaning it against a chair in the middle of the room before heading back into the kitchen and making herself a mug of tea. Leaving it there, she hesitated for a moment before going upstairs and stripping down her bed with considerable difficulty, swearing as she did so, and then chucking the pile of dirty bedding down the stairs in a somewhat undignified manner, accompanying it with the laundry basket, and then bundling the entire lot up in the hall and carrying it into the kitchen, where she shoved it into the washing machine, added detergent, and set the whole thing running.

Mentally ticking that off her to-do list, she headed back into the studio with her tea and steeled herself to continue the arduous task of sorting through her work, stealing a glance at the clock and letting out a sigh of regret that it would be way, way after midnight before she could finally retreat to bed.


	44. Chapter 44

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clara arrives at Sephy's, and finds a house and partner in disarray.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another week... more lockdown... hope everyone is staying safe and sane!

Sephy was still deep in the throes of sleep when the knock on the door came the next morning. At first dismissing it as nothing more than part of a dream, she rolled over and pulled the duvet over her head more absolutely, but when it came again, louder and more insistent, she realised her error and let out a muffled groan. Sitting up slowly, running one hand through the tangled mess of her hair as she did so, she looked over at her bedside clock and swore under her breath. Leaping out of bed and grabbing her dressing gown, she half-ran, half-fell downstairs as she pulled the garment on, yanking open the front door with an apologetic grimace.

“I am _so_ sorry,” she mumbled, as Clara surveyed her with a bemused expression from the doorstep, sunglasses perched atop her head. “My bloody alarm… I forgot to set it, and…” she yawned widely. “I didn’t get to bed until gone one… sorry, shit, come in.”

“Why did you not go to bed until…” Clara frowned, reaching for Sephy’s injured hand and examining it closely. A drop of blood, pinhead-sized, had soaked through the cream fabric of her bandage, and Sephy’s shoulders sagged as she realised that it conveyed, accurately, to Clara that she’d over-exerted herself the previous evening. “What did you do?!”

“I didn’t…” she began hopelessly, not wanting to make her partner feel guilty. “Just tidied… changed the bedding…”

“You changed the bedding?!” Clara sighed heavily. “You didn’t need to do that. I could’ve helped you this morning; we could’ve done it together.”

“But…”

“But now you’re bleeding because you wanted to ‘make a good impression.’ I didn’t want that impression to involve you making yourself bleed for me; you should’ve been more careful.”

“Sorry,” Sephy mumbled, feeling suddenly, irrationally irritated at being spoken to like a child. This visit had been Clara’s idea; all Sephy had wanted to do was meet the standards that were expected of her. Having spent so much time in Clara’s minimalist, effortlessly tidy flat, she felt – not for the first time – a hot rush of shame at her cluttered, brightly-hued house, and she pulled away from Clara, yanking her sleeves down over her hands and folding her arms defensively. “Stay there. I’ll go and get dressed.”

“Did I…” Clara began, but Sephy turned and stomped upstairs before her partner could get any further. Of course it didn’t matter to Clara what the house looked like; of course it didn’t matter to her whether the bedsheets were clean or not; of course it didn’t matter to her whether there was dust. And yet it mattered to Sephy; she felt a surge of embarrassment at the thought of Clara encountering the place as it had been yesterday evening upon her return home; felt a hot surge of embarrassment about asking Clara to sleep in a bed that hadn’t been changed in several weeks, busy and unavailable as she had been to do mundane chores like laundry.

Re-entering her bedroom, she closed the door behind her and leant against it, taking in the twisted mess that had, the previous evening, been a neatly-made bed with freshly-washed sheets on. Letting out a groan, she set to work straightening the pillows and smoothing down the duvet, wishing she’d thought to sleep on the sofa or somewhere similarly less prone to creases and tangled linen. When the bed looked approximately neat, she sank down on the edge of it and reached for a hairbrush, dragging it through her hair as she looked over at herself in the mirror. There were dark circles under her eyes, and she looked pale and tired; perhaps Clara had been right and it would’ve been prudent to wait until today, and let her help with sorting the house out.

There was a soft knock at her bedroom door, and Sephy jumped, dropping her hairbrush as she did so.

“Sephy?” Clara said quietly. “Can I come in?”

“Urm,” Sephy scrabbled around on the floor, snatching up the brush and turning it over in her hands. “Yeah. I suppose so.”

The door opened slowly and Clara edged tentatively into the room, looking around at the art prints on the walls and the brightly-patterned floral duvet cover with genuine interest and curiosity.

“Hi,” she began in an uncertain tone. “Sorry. I wasn’t trying to… I didn’t mean to nag. I just don’t want you to hurt yourself for my sake.”

“I…”

“Your room is really nice,” Clara flashed her a shy smile. “It’s very… you. Very bright.”

“Thanks,” Sephy mumbled, setting her brush back on her chest of drawers and flashing her partner a smile. “I tried my best with it.”

“Can I see your hand?” Clara asked, holding out her own hands expectantly, palms up and open. “Please?”

“It’s fine,” Sephy shot back quickly, although she could feel it throbbing, low and uncomfortable. “It’s…”

“You’re a shit liar,” Clara told her sternly, taking her hand and gently examining it. As she reached for the end of the bandage and began to unwind it, Sephy steeled herself, but when the dressings fell away, there was only the barest hint of blood; a whorl against her palm, easily wiped away. “Does it hurt?”

“A bit,” Sephy managed through gritted teeth. Free from its dressings, it felt better; the cool air of the room soothing away some of the discomfort that had been prickling over her skin since the previous evening. “Better now.”

Clara smiled, pressing a tender kiss to the edge of her palm. “Do you want to get dressed, or can I have the tour in a dressing gown?”

“I’ll put something on,” Sephy grimaced as she cursed herself again for failing to set an alarm. “Sorry, I was supposed to be up an hour ago… I was going to make breakfast, get ready, do some last minute tidying…”

“It’s fine,” Clara said at once. “It’s really, really fine. We can make breakfast together, how about that?”

“That’d be… nice,” Sephy admitted, slipping off her dressing gown and opening her top drawer. Retrieving a clean pair of socks, some knickers, and a bralette, she chucked the items onto the bed beside Clara, and then opened the next drawer down and picked out a pair of navy-blue joggers and a bright pink t-shirt at random, sinking down onto the edge of the bed and tugging her pyjama top over her head. She could feel Clara’s gaze burning into her as she pulled the bralette on, and she tried to turn away, to disguise how much her cheeks were flushing, but she knew Clara could tell, nonetheless.

“You’re making me self-conscious,” she complained half-heartedly as she dragged the t-shirt on over the top and smoothed it down. “Staring at me like that.”

“Do you want me to stop?” Clara asked with a smirk, the corner of her mouth quirking up just _so_. “Or turn away?”

“Don’t be cheeky.”

“Why?” Clara drawled, leaning back against the edge of her headboard and folding her arms. “It’s fun.”

“You’re bad,” Sephy warned, slipping off her pyjama shorts and pulling on the clean knickers she’d picked out in one fluid movement. She realised too late that they were adorned with a pattern of frolicking penguins, but she hadn’t the heart to change them now; she hoped to god that Clara wouldn’t notice. “Very bad.”

“Nice pants,” Clara teased, and Sephy’s cheeks burned a deeper shade of red as she stepped into the joggers, yanked them up, and then pulled on her socks and stuck her feet into her slippers. “Very… model-like.”

“Latest fashion trend,” Sephy deadpanned. “Penguin pants.”

“I could definitely work that into the collection,” Clara mused aloud. “How about it?”

“How about no,” Sephy stuck her tongue out in her partner’s direction, getting to her feet and retrieving one of the large plasters the hospital had provided her to cover her injury with on the occasions when it was inconvenient or impossible to swathe it in bandages. “Come on. Downstairs.”

“Yes boss,” Clara muttered, following her downstairs and then pausing in the hall as Sephy fiddled inexpertly with the plaster in her left hand. “Oh, give it here.”

She took it from Sephy before she could argue, peeled off the backing, and applied it neatly to the offending hand with a laser-sharp precision that Sephy had to admit was impressive.

“Thanks,” she mumbled, flexing her fingers experimentally. “That’s better.”

“Try not to make yourself bleed, alright?” Clara chided. “That plaster doesn’t look very absorbent."

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Sephy rolled her eyes. “Now, do you want the house tour, or not?”

Clara made a face. “Actually…” she began tentatively. “Could we maybe start with a cuppa, or is that an unreasonable demand?”

“So unreasonable,” Sephy said with a straight face. “So demanding, so… no, of course it’s not. Come on, let’s whack the kettle on.”

* * *

The studio was the last place that Sephy showed Clara. Mugs of steaming tea in hand, they stepped over the threshold, and Clara froze, looking over the enormous mural that dominated the space and sucking in an awestruck breath. With the mid-morning sun filtering through the windows, hueing the entire space a rich shade of gold, the colours seemed to glow, and the effect was spectacular.

“You painted that?” she asked with awe, and Sephy nodded, suddenly embarrassed. “Where did you… how did you…”

“It just… comes to me,” Sephy admitted, hating how vague and unspecific it sounded. “It’s not a conscious thing, I just kind of… see it, in my mind’s eye, and then I try it out on paper a few times, making sure it’s how I want it, before committing it to paint.”

Clara stepped closer to the mural, setting her mug down and tracing the curve of the glass dome encapsulating the city with her finger held in mid-air. “It’s beautiful. It feels like… it feels like a photograph. Not like a painting. It feels like I’m there, looking over the planet.”

“It’s not that g-” Sephy began, but Clara cut her off with an impatient little shake of the head.

“Don’t,” she said softly, the words low and warning. “Don’t put yourself down like that. This is phenomenal, Sephy. I won’t have you putting yourself down and saying it’s not any good, because that’s not true. You’re worth more than that.”

“I just wanted to point out that-”

“What’s it called?” Clara asked, and the sudden question threw Sephy.

“What’s what called?” she asked, frowning in confusion.

“The mural. The planet, I suppose, but also the mural.”

“Oh,” Sephy blinked hard. “Urm. I called it ‘Gallifrey,’ but since no one knows it exists other than people who’ve been here, I suppose that’s really quite subjective.”

“Gallifrey,” Clara repeated, trying out the word and beaming. “I like that. It fits.”

Sephy perched on the edge of a nearby stool, watching Clara admire the details in the picture. There was something oddly touching about seeing her partner so engrossed in her work, and she took a sip of her tea, smiling at Clara fondly as she examined the artwork in more depth.

“You’re doing the smile,” Clara said out of nowhere, and Sephy jumped, narrowly avoiding sloshing tea over herself. “The one you do when you think I can’t see you.”

“I have a smile for that?”

“You do, and you’re doing it.”

“Well, it’s… it’s just really… I can’t express it, but it’s special to me to have you take such an interest.”

“Why wouldn’t I take an interest?” Clara looked over at her and frowned, her expression entirely uncomprehending. “Why wouldn’t anyone?”

“You’d be surprised.”

“But it’s what you do, and it’s beautiful.”

“Not everyone sees it like that.”

“Would you…” Clara bit her lip, fiddling with her sleeve before asking: “Would you paint me?”

“I tried, remember?” Sephy noted, setting her tea down and sighing heavily. “Before we… well. And I just couldn’t… I couldn’t get it right. I couldn’t quite capture you just right.”

“I think there’s a reason,” Clara said softly, padding across the floor and coming to stand in front of her. “I think there’s a _very_ good reason for that.”

“Oh?” Sephy asked, frowning as she tried to understand what Clara was hinting at. “And that would be?”

“I think,” Clara’s hand came to rest on her cheek, and she leaned in and whispered: “I think I was overly clothed.”

“How do you…” Sephy managed, dimly aware that Clara’s other hand was reaching behind herself and dragging down the zip on her dress. She understood, with sudden, lightning-sharp comprehension, that this was a seduction, and everything about it seemed to effortlessly make sense in a way that seemed entirely alien to her, out of practice as she was. “How do you know I was painting you clothed?”

“Call it a hunch,” Clara murmured, pressing a lazy, languid kiss to Sephy’s jaw. “Call it the fact that you blush so ferociously whenever you see me undressed. Call it a _feeling_.”

“A feeling,” Sephy repeated, as Clara’s dress fell to the floor, puddling at her feet. “That’s not very… scientific.”

“Are you really telling me that you want to worry about science?” Clara asked, moving to stand between Sephy’s legs, and Sephy was suddenly acutely aware of how little Clara was wearing. A flimsy pair of tights and two tiny scraps of black lace was all that protected her modesty, and she found herself reaching for her subconsciously, her hands settling on Clara’s waist. “I don’t think you do. I think you need to trust me.”

“I think…” Sephy began, but she was cut off as Clara kissed her, long and slow and soft, in a manner that brooked no arguments. Her fingers probed the edges of Sephy’s t-shirt experimentally, skimming underneath the hem and settling under the waistband of her joggers, and Sephy closed her eyes, letting out a soft, silent _oh_ of surrender as Clara pulled away and began to trail kisses down her throat. “This wasn’t…” she managed. “How I thought this would… when we went to bed… I didn’t…”

“You could take me to bed,” Clara hummed, interrupting her rambling. “You _could_. Or we could stay here, with this wonderful light, and I could watch you make the most beautiful faces as I have you on that frankly inviting looking sofa in the corner.”

“I didn’t realise you were here to…” Sephy let out a soft whimper as Clara’s hands skimmed up her spine and came to rest on the clasp of her bra. “…seduce me.”

“I wasn’t here to,” Clara whispered, smirking as she pressed a kiss to the side of Sephy’s mouth. “But something about seeing you so passionate… so at ease… how could I help myself?”

“So it’s my fault?” Sephy hummed, splaying her fingers across Clara’s skin and enjoying how her partner shivered in response. “It’s my fault you’re going to have your way with me on that grubby old sofa?”

“You make me sound _so_ sordid,” Clara laughed breathlessly, kissing Sephy languidly again. “Tell me honestly that you don’t want that, and I’ll stop. I’ll put my clothes back on, and we can sip tea and be demure ladies as we spend the day together.”

“Or…”

“Or, say the word, and I will have you out of those clothes, and… well, I’ve been imagining this for such a long time, but I want to see what you look like when I’m inside you. When you’re begging. When you say my name like it’s the only thing that matters.”

Sephy let out a quiet moan, trembling under Clara’s touch. “Please,” she implores. “ _Please_.”

“Please _what_?”

“Please, the second one.”


	45. Chapter 45

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the wake of their first time, Clara and Sephy realise the depth of Clara's issues with intimacy. Can things be salvaged?

Clara looked over at the woman beside her, her eyes closed peacefully as her breathing returned slowly to normal and the sweat dried on her skin. This hadn’t been her plan for the morning; perhaps the evening, yes, but for the morning she’d wanted to spend time with Sephy, look at her artwork, and well… she wasn’t sure what else, but certainly not this. And yet something about Sephy’s enthusiasm and passion had been so irresistibly appealing that Clara had found her self-control slipping away, until she’d been unable to think straight, and unable to make sensible, reasonable judgments which didn’t end with the two of them naked on a sofa in Sephy’s studio.

Clara reached over and settled a hand on Sephy’s abdomen, her fingers splayed as she watched her partner’s chest rise and fall.

“Did you like it?” she asked softly, the question slipping from her lips unbidden, and she immediately loathed herself for how pathetic it sounded; how desperate for approval it made her seem. It was a trite, embarrassing question, but it had slipped out entirely unbidden, and she wished more than anything she could retract the words. “I… I don’t… I mean…”

“Do you have to ask?” Sephy murmured, opening her eyes and looking over at Clara with amusement. “I mean, I think my reaction made it quite obvious.”

“I know,” Clara hummed, trailing her fingers upwards to Sephy’s sternum. “I just… wanted to check.”

“It was wonderful,” Sephy managed, as Clara’s fingers traced the expanse of her collarbone, ghosting over the lower part of her neck and making her breath hitch. “Like your ego needs stroking.”

“Other parts of me do.”

“Down, girl,” Sephy smirked tiredly. “Patience.”

“We waited so long for the first time,” Clara reasoned, her hand coming to rest on Sephy’s shoulder, her thumb stroking absent-minded patterns on the skin there. “You’d better not make me wait that many months for the second.”

“Months, no. Minutes, also no,” Sephy rolled her eyes fondly. “Some of us don’t have a refractory period that short. Some of us need time to recover.”

“Recover?” Clara arched an eyebrow teasingly. “Was it that bad?”

“No, it was that good,” Sephy said with sincerity. “I need some time to get my breath back, and I’d like to suggest moving somewhere more comfortable for Round Two.”

“So, there’s going to be a Round Two?”

“Why wouldn’t there be?”

“I don’t know,” Clara bit down on her lip, feeling abruptly shy. “Just thought I’d check.”

“What, do you think I’m going to cut and run now?” Sephy asked, frowning at the implication. “Do you think this is all that I wanted?”

“No!” Clara protested, sitting up and folding her arms across her chest defensively. “No, I just… historically…”

“Historically, what?”

“Historically, that’s what people have done.”

“And I’m the same as them?” Sephy asked, her tone oddly flat. “I’m the same as all those awful people who just fucked you and then lost interest?”

“No!” Clara said at once, shaking her head emphatically as she realised why Sephy was so offended and desperately tried to mentally scramble to undo the damage. “No, you’re not… not at all, you’re nothing like them!”

“So, stop lumping me in with all the people who fucked and chucked you,” Sephy snapped, getting to her feet and snatching up her clothes in a haphazard bundle. “I’m going for a shower.”

“Can I…”

“Don’t follow me.”

She stalked out of the studio before Clara could say another word, slamming the door behind her.

Clara sat for a moment, entirely still and staring in the direction her partner had just stormed off in. Swallowing thickly, she looked around the studio and then wrapped her arms around herself all the more securely, her lip beginning to tremble as she dissolved into frustrated, involuntary tears.

Logically, she knew that Sephy was different to her previous partners. Sephy was everything the others had not been; attentive, caring, compassionate, and genuinely uninterested in any of the celebrity status that Clara held so reluctantly. Despite having had numerous reasons to re-evaluate her relationship with Clara, plenty of opportunities to change her mind, and plenty of chances to leave when confronted with the exact, specific nature of the car crash that was Clara Oswald in all her hideous, messy glory, Sephy hadn’t cut and run. Quite the inverse; she’d chosen to stay. At moments when others would have left, she’d stayed – at the hospital, at the party, when she’d found Clara alone, drunk and panicking. Through it all, she’d stayed; she’d remained devoted and caring, even when Clara had been inherently unlikeable, and she’d reassured Clara every step of the way; promised her things would be alright, told her that she would stay, reminded her that she wasn’t the awful, selfish hedonist the papers made her out to be, or the unlovable specimen her exes painted her as. Time and time again, she’d proved that she was different to those who had come before, and yet still Clara felt that pang of anxiety; that undercurrent of paranoia that things were going to change irrevocably at every twist and turn.

It wasn’t fair. Clara knew it wasn’t fair to make the same assumptions about Sephy that she’d made about her previous partners; the assumptions that had been hard-wired into her by years of unsuitable people who wanted nothing more than to hitch a ride on her star. Yet for the first time, she realised how profoundly that viewpoint was impacting on her; realised that by making the same assumptions about Sephy, she was likely to drive her away; to cause her offence and make her feel antagonised and self-conscious. Clara wondered what it was like to be with her; wondered what it was like to be with someone who fell apart at the slightest inconvenience, panicked at the least issue, and grew angry and suspicious at the most minor thing. They’d shared an intimate moment together; the two of them in the studio, lit only by the glow of the morning sun. They’d taken the first tentative steps towards discovering what the other liked; how to touch each other; how to make and unmake each other; and then she’d spoilt it with her paranoia and her insecurity. Spoilt it by lumping Sephy in with a group of people that she knew she didn’t belong to.

She knew it was wrong, and yet she didn’t know how to stop doing it; didn’t know how to see anything but the worst in people, or how to stop assuming that they were going to hurt her. That was all she knew; that was all people around her seemed to know how to do, but Sephy seemed different – Sephy _was_ different, and yet Clara knew that her brain was still stuck in the past, determined to see a pattern where there was none. Determined to predict a future that might not come to pass; determined to write her off as the same as the others to avoid having to be hurt later on. That was where her fear ebbed from; from a litany of wounds that were imperceptible to the human eye, but which she bore on her heart and her soul each hour of each day, and which oozed pain and mistrust and anger with each beat of her heart, threatening to tarnish everything she held dear. Old injuries; old heartbreaks; old betrayals; and while their hurt faded with each passing day, there was still the insidious tug of the pain they had caused, and still the threat that it could drag her back under.

Getting to her feet, she began to get dressed with weary resolve, her limbs aching under the weight of knowing that she’d hurt Sephy with her assumptions. As she headed out into the hall, she tried to force down the self-loathing and anxiety rising in her chest, hesitating a moment to straighten her hair in a mirror and then slipping her shoes on. Lifting her bag onto her shoulder and reaching into it for her phone, she stepped out of the front door without looking back, her eyes wet with tears.

* * *

Sephy was garbed a fresh set of clothes, towelling her hair dry, when she heard the unmistakeable sound of the front door opening and closing. She tried to dismiss it; tried to write it off as an auditory imagining of some kind, before stepping out onto the landing and looking down into the hall. The space that had been occupied by Clara’s bag and shoes was now empty, and Sephy didn’t need to head into the studio to know that Clara had gone. Dropping the towel, leaning back and sliding down the wall at the top of the stairs, Sephy allowed the anger and resentment that had been threatening to overwhelm her boil to the surface, clenching her fists until her injured hand screamed in complaint before then actually screaming aloud, muffling the sound in her knees and beating her fists against her legs as she screamed for herself and for the woman she had found herself hopelessly, complexly, impossibly in love with.

She’d known from the start that Clara was fragile; had known that her self-esteem was as delicate as if it were made of glass. She’d spent hours trying to reassure Clara that she was wanted and she was loved, and yet still the designer mistrusted her; still she worried that Sephy would prove the same as all of those who had come before. The accusation today had hurt more than Sephy could put into words; she’d had to leave the room to avoid shouting at Clara, and yet a small part of her knew that it wasn’t her partner’s fault and that trauma cut deep, but it failed to mitigate the hurt and anger she felt each time an unreasonable accusation was levelled at her.

Pounding her fists against her legs, she burst into furious tears as she understood that after it all, Clara had walked out on her. Clara had got what she’d wanted, and she’d gone; she’d got the shag she’d been so desperate for and she’d immediately lost interest. Sephy felt stupid; used; foolish; felt a surge of absolute fury that she’d been so idiotically naïve that she hadn’t seen Clara’s intentions in coming here. Why couldn’t they have fucked at Clara’s place? Why had the designer insisted on coming here to do so; insisted on sullying her studio forever by rendering it the place in which a final betrayal had come to pass? The sofa would have to go, and Sephy got to her feet as though in a trance, heading down to the studio with bare feet and staring at the offending item of furniture with a bitter sense of hatred.

Snatching up a nearby pair of scissors, she levelled them at one of the sofa cushions and was about to bring them down hard when there was a cautious knock at the door and she froze, her face contorted into an expression of absolute loathing. Getting to her feet and dropping the scissors onto the sofa, she stalked into the hall and yanked the door open to find an enormous, seemingly-floating bunch of flowers.

“What the _fuck_?” she asked, her arms falling uselessly to her sides as she contemplated the sight before her with confusion. “I…”

“Hi,” Clara said nervously, moving the bouquet down and peeping through the blooms with a palpable sense of terror. “I… wanted to get you something to say sorry. These were all that Sainsbury’s Local had.”

“They’re still… fairly large,” Sephy said faintly, her head spinning with anger, relief, and confusion. “Why did you come back?”

“I only went out for these."

“No, you left.”

“To get these.”

“You _left_ ,” Sephy snapped, then felt a surge of guilt as Clara flinched. “You didn’t think how that would look, after you accused me of using you.”

“I’m sorry,” Clara said quietly. “I really am. I know you’re not like the others… I understand that now. I was stupid and I’m going to talk to someone about it, because I can’t stand what I’m doing to this relationship.”

“Oh,” Sephy felt the wind leave her sails abruptly. “So, you haven’t just fucked and chucked me?”

“Categorically not,” Clara’s expression fell. “Is that why you look so angry?”

“Might be,” Sephy mumbled. “You’d better back in. If that’s what you want.”

“It’s what I want,” Clara said quickly. “Always.”

“Well then,” Sephy gestured to the threshold and Clara crossed it with tangible apprehension. “There we go.”


	46. Chapter 46

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clara begins a journey of self-improvement; one which is threatened by a sudden, unwelcome development.

There was, Clara had to admit, something effortlessly calming about Doctor Moon, her new therapist. His very being seemed to emanate serenity and composure, and everything about him – from his manner to the way that he spoke – seemed carefully considered, measured, and weighed up. There was no meaningless chatter or inane babbling; there were no jocular comments or brash laughter; the most emotion he might show would be a wry smile if she made a particularly humorous comment, but anything more than that was uncommon. He did not waver or falter in his composure; not even during their first session, when she’d sat with her arms folded and made flippant comments in a bid to disguise her nerves; not even when she’d cried during their second session, and apologised, and admitted that she wanted nothing more than to simply enjoy her relationship, free from the demons of the past. He’d passed her a box of tissues then with a gentle, sympathetic manner, waited until she’d mopped at her eyes until she’d regained her composure, then started to speak in that slow, reassuring way he had.

He wasn’t like other therapists she’d had; he wasn’t patronising or abrupt or rude. He didn’t look at her with pity, loathing or contempt; he didn’t smirk when she shared her problems, or dismiss her words as hysteria or silliness. She supposed that was why Donna had recommended him, with a sympathetic smile and a few low words of encouragement, and Clara thanked god that she had; while she left sessions feeling emotionally wrung out, there was also a feeling of lightness that was beginning to set in, as she unburdened herself of some of the emotional baggage she had been carrying with her for years on end, weighing her down and marring her relationships.

Clara could feel the difference in her everyday life. Her thrice-weekly sessions had at first seemed onerous; a large chunk of time that could be taken up with work or fun or Sephy, or sometimes various combinations thereof. And yet she’d had to remind herself that Sephy was precisely the reason she was doing this; precisely why she was working so hard to improve herself and strive to be a better person. After the debacle that had been their first time, she was determined not to allow her own self-doubt and self-loathing to impact on their relationship again, and she was determined to ensure that she become the person Sephy deserved. She could still feel her anxiety, white-hot and insidious, under the surface of her consciousness, but she fought hard to keep it pushed down out of sight and out of mind; worked hard to ensure that it didn’t overwhelm her and threaten to derail everything she was striving towards. When she lay in bed at night, either alone or – more commonly – with Sephy, she acknowledged the thoughts she could feel threatening to erupt to the forefront of her mind, and yet that was all; she didn’t indulge them with hours of worrying, or prolonged attention.

Clara had had three weeks of sessions thus far, and yet she could feel her mindset shifting with each passing day. The insidious fear of abandonment that so often demanded her attention was beginning to become increasingly silent; the fear of Sephy’s manner and nature suddenly changing was beginning to seem foolish. Clara felt secure and happy in a way that was alien to her, and the fear of that was diminishing each day, falling away as she began to feel more at ease with the concept of her own happiness. It had always been so alien to her before; an idea she’d struggled with, fragile as her own contentment seemed. She’d never fully allowed herself to lose herself in her own joy as the fear of it all coming crashing down seemed omnipresent, never fully dissipating, regardless of her own or others’ assurances. Clara had never allowed herself to lose herself in her happiness; never allowed herself to let her guard down, because at some point it was bound to collapse around her ears or shatter. And yet now she understood the fallacy of that; now she understood that in doing so, she had almost jinxed her own happiness as she’d looked – however subconsciously – for an obstacle or stumbling block to claim as being the harbinger of doom, and thus drag everything down with her. There was no risk of her happiness being spoilt if she was the one who caused the destruction herself, and she could see the logic in that argument, even as she felt the discomfort that came with knowing that she was the unwitting saboteur of her own relationships.

It was true, though; in each of her relationships she’d been the one to be in control, and the one who inevitably brought her and her partner to their metaphorical knees. If she panicked and claimed that the most minor of issues was the signal of the end of it all, she couldn’t be hurt; wouldn’t be hurt. There was no opportunity for the other party to lash out at her if she was the one doing the lashing; if she was the one fighting with every part of her being for freedom, there would be no unwelcome surprises and no sudden endings; there would be no abrupt ceasing of the relationship, except on her terms. She’d known, of course, that she was a control freak, but to hear Doctor Moon laying it out for her in such stark terms was unpleasant, and then unavoidable; to look back with the lens of self-perception, she could see that it made sense in a perverse, awful way.

* * *

“I’m proud of you,” Sephy said one evening, entirely out of the blue. They were curled up together on the sofa, half-watching a film and intermittently chatting about their days.

“Why?” Clara asked, lulled by the warmth of her partner’s arms and the soft soundtrack of the film they’d been half-watching into a state of sleepiness. “What for?”

“Going to see that therapist,” Sephy murmured, pressing a kiss to her temple. “Working hard on yourself to feel better and be better. You’re different already; you’re… happier. Calmer. You don’t look as panicked any more, when you think I can’t see you.”

“Don’t I?” Clara mumbled, feeling a twinge of guilt that Sephy had noticed. “That’s… good.”

“Do you feel different?”

“Yeah,” Clara admitted in a small voice. “I’m not as scared anymore; I don’t feel like you’re suddenly going to turn into a metaphorical ogre and leave. And I don’t feel like I’m going to self-sabotage.”

“Well, that’s…” Sephy paused for a long moment. “Definitely good. Thank you for not thinking I’m going to be an ogre; I didn’t want a bit-part in _Shrek_.”

Clara laughed then, rolling over in her partner’s arms and pressing a kiss to the tip of Sephy’s nose. “It wouldn’t suit you,” she shrugged. “Not a bit. So it’s definitely for the best. How’s the hand?”

Sephy held it up and flexed her fingers experimentally. “I’ll be painting you like one of my French girls as soon as I can. Don’t you worry about that.”

“Do you want any practice?” Clara hummed. “Because that could be arranged.”

“Do I want you to take off all your clothes and lay perfectly still two metres away from me for an hour?” Sephy pretended to ponder the question. “No. Can you take all your clothes off and lay not still at all in bed with me? Yes. But only if I get to do the same, and absolutely not on the sofa. The last time we had sex on a bloody sofa, my neck hurt for two days.”

“Only your neck?” Clara deadpanned. “Not anything else? You were being fairly… athletic.” Sephy’s cheeks coloured, and Clara smirked. “You look so pretty when you blush,” she whispered. “Yes, we can go to bed. Don’t want you with neckache again, do I?”

“Ideally not, unless you’re offering to massage it.”

“I can certainly massage other parts of you.” The blush deepened, and Clara snickered. “Go on. Bed.”

* * *

If it had been intoxicating simply being near Sephy and establishing an emotional connection over the previous months, the new physical aspect of their relationship was overwhelming. Sometimes Clara would lay in bed with her for hours, trailing her fingers over Sephy’s skin and smiling softly at the reaction it elicited from her partner. There would be soft kisses and murmured words of affection, and then there would come the inevitability of round two or three or four; until they were both panting for breath and uncertain where one of them ended and the other began. It was dizzying in its simplicity and its pleasure; glorious without being intricate or overly complicated. There was simply the two of them being very much in love, and Clara lost count of how many hours she had lost in bed with Sephy; stopped caring after the second or third day, because regardless of what her work meant to her, this was a more primal need. It wasn’t even about the sex; that seemed tangential and unimportant; but rather it was about the physical intimacy of it all. The way Sephy looked at her, totally wrecked; the way Sephy’s fingers and tongue felt as she learnt what Clara liked; the way Sephy became a different person when they retreated to the sanctuary of bed, her inhibitions falling away as she allowed more base instincts to take over.

Clara was happy. It frightened her to admit it – although less and less with each passing day – but she felt, for the first time in a long time, content. She loved a good woman and was well-loved in return; her self-perception was growing increasingly positive; she was fulfilled in ways she had never been before. Entirely sober for the first time in a long time, she was rediscovering her health and her vitality, and she felt newly energised as she bounded around the office or her flat or Sephy’s home, working on this or that project or simply making dinner and engaging in conversation, particularly those she had once been too self-important or out of it to consider speaking with before. Now, she spoke to everyone at work, greeting them with a smile – the doorman, the receptionist, her seamstresses, her colleagues. They had been disconcerted at first, if not a little suspicious, but the new normal had quickly become established and now they beamed at her with reciprocal warmth, enjoying the enlivenment of their boss as her infectious enthusiasm fizzed through the office.

Clara apologised to Yvonne and to Donna; she felt she owed them that, after the years of ill-treatment they’d endured at her hands, and the crap they’d had to put up with while she’d been too self-centred to see beyond the end of her own nose. They’d looked startled, something which had only been mitigated when she’d offered them both considerable salary increases and ordered them to take a week off with full pay, but she hoped that the message had got through to them that yes, she had been absent and awful and unkind, but that was in the past. She was a new person now, a better person, and she walked with her head held high and her shoulders back, a smile on her face, as she strolled through the office and exchanged pleasantries with all she passed. A breath of fresh air had blown through the place with the arrival of Sephy all those months before, and she felt as though the change could only be good for business.

It was with that in mind that she stepped out of the office one glorious spring afternoon, sunglasses atop her head as she ambled in the direction of the Tube, her mind already thinking ahead to her session with Doctor Moon. They’d agreed to discuss anxiety in more depth and work on strategies; to brainstorm some ideas, and conduct some behavioural experiments. Clara’s notebook was heavy in her handbag as she wandered past the coffee shops and steel-and-chrome office blocks that lined her route to the Underground, and she was almost halfway there when she froze, gaping in horror at the billboard that she so often ignored.

It was impossible to ignore now. Pasted across it, 5 metres high and in excruciating high definition, was an image of Danny, reclining on a bed in a pair of tight-fitting black boxer shorts, abs – surely Photoshopped, she told herself – rippling as he lay back with a suggestive smirk on his face.

And blazoned around the waistband of the underwear and printed in enormous letters in the corner of the advertisement were the words _Melissa Saxon._


	47. Chapter 47

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clara doesn't know where she is. By the time she realises, it's too late.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you’re all ready for this...

Clara didn’t know where she was. She’d faded back to awareness gradually, and now she was trying to piece together the clues around her until they made a vague kind of sense.

It was dark and there was loud music of the kind she didn’t usually enjoy; the steady _thump thump thump_ of a bassline that she could feel reverberating through the floor. The track was so loud that it drowned out everything around her; if the people seated in booths on either side of her had tried to talk to her, she wouldn’t have been able to hear them. There was only the steady pulsing of the beat, removing all possibility of her being able to ask anyone where she might be.

The light pulsed purple and yellow and blue, occasionally fracturing into staccato bursts of lightning-sharp flashes that made her feel discombobulated and disoriented; the people around her seeming to move in slow motion as the room flickered in and out of illumination. She knew what that effect was; knew there was a name for it, but much like where she was, the knowledge was lost to her; locked away in some part of her brain that she couldn’t seem to remember where she’d put the key to. Getting unsteadily to her feet and stumbling forward in the gloom, she encountered a railing that pressed hard into her waist as she leant against it for support and peered downwards, taking in the sight of a throng of revellers, all of them jumping to the beat that she could feel in her chest.

She felt confused and ill at ease; her grasp on reality felt as though it were slipping away from her like water, and while she felt alert and awake, there was a sense of exhaustion undercutting her consciousness, flowing through her veins like treacle and threatening to drag her under. She wanted to succumb to it; wanted to slow down, in the hope that it might allow her brain the chance to catch up with where she was and why and how and-

A club. That was it; some part of her brain finally kicked into action, and she remembered what this place was. A nightclub; she was in a nightclub. Why was she in a nightclub?

Holding onto the balustrade a little more tightly, she tried to remember, but it was like hitting a brick wall. Over and over and over again, she tried to think back to the day’s events, but the pulsing bass was making it impossible to concentrate, and she was becoming increasingly aware of the fact that her heartbeat spiralling out of control. Looking down at her hands where they were clutching the railing, she focused on them with some difficulty and realised they were shaking; holding them in front of her face, she watched them tremble in time with the humming of her pulse, and tried to quell a rising sense of panic.

She’d been happy a few moments ago, hadn’t she? She recalled that; recalled feeling outrageously, untouchably happy; recalled feeling as though nothing in the world could bring her down. She had a dim recollection of dancing like no one could see her, feeling entirely in tune with the people around her as they moved to the music. She’d felt like she belonged; like she was part of something; but now? Now she just felt confused and scared as her heart thundered in her chest and her brain consistently failed to recall anything before the previous few… well, how long had she been here? Hours? Minutes?

Pushing away from the balcony’s edge, Clara pushed her way over to the well-stocked bar in the corner of the upper level of the club, leaning against the illuminated top and closing her eyes against the glow emanating from within.

“You again?” a voice asked close to her ear, and she jumped, her eyes snapping open as she realised that the bartender, a girl with long braids and a nose ring, had leant over and addressed her. She had probably been bellowing, but over the crashing music, it was little more than a whisper.

“How long have I been here?” Clara demanded to know, looking behind the girl for a clock or anything that might provide a clue as to the time. “What time is it?”

“Few hours,” the bartender shrugged, looking at her with a maddening, unreadable smirk that Clara didn’t understand. “What’ll it be this time?”

“Sorry?”

“What are you buying everyone this round?”

“What?” Clara looked at her with horror as understanding began to dawn, the faintest stirrings of remembrance starting to take root, and she reached reflexively to her bag and her purse. There was a dim memory of buying… _something_ ; had she really bought everyone drinks? Why had she done that? _Had_ she done that, even, or was this some kind of wind-up?

“Don’t worry,” the bartender said, her smirk intensifying. “I’ve seen people do worse under the influence.”

“Under the…”

The girl only raised her eyebrows and said with contempt: “Please.”

“Why am I here?” Clara asked, reaching for the bartender desperately and settling her hand over the stranger’s. “What’s…”

“You said something about a man,” the girl said with a shrug. “When you arrived. Something about getting over a man. The usual.”

Recollection crashed over Clara in a tidal wave, and she let go of the bartender’s hand as though she’d been burnt.

The advert. The advert with Danny on.

The advert for _Melissa Saxon_ with Danny on.

She’d seen it and she’d lost control. She’d had a panic attack in the street, her breathing accelerating way past the norm as she’d panicked and fought the urge to be sick; as she’d sunk to the pavement and clutched her knees to her chest and tried to regain control. She’d tried to recall something – anything – from her counselling sessions; tried to implement strategies; tried to breathe past it; but she couldn’t. The betrayal had felt insurmountable; Danny’s actions had felt like a deliberate assault on all she’d ever held dear, and she didn’t know how to cope with it; didn’t know how to quiet the insidious, awful voices inside of her which told her she deserved it, she had caused it, and this was her punishment for all those months of ill-treatment.

There had been a bar.

There had been another bar.

And there had been here.

She remembered dancing on the tables. She remembered handing her credit card to the girl behind the bar who was now looking at her with considerably more concern, insisting on buying everyone a drink. She remembered feeling a rush of love for the strangers around her as they toasted her, and buying another round, and another.

“Oh god,” Clara mumbled, turning and sinking down to the floor with her back against the bar. Illuminated from within, it felt unbearably warm to the touch, and she realised suddenly how hot she was, running her hands over her bare arms and trying to catch her breath. “Oh god. Oh god. Oh god.”

Danny had gone to work for Melissa Saxon. After everything… he’d gone to work for someone he knew she despised; had almost definitely done it for precisely that reason. He’d betrayed her not only personally but professionally, and now she was faced with the prospect of seeing his image everywhere she looked; of having countless strangers mention it to her; of being unable to escape seeing his face and his body and that bloody woman’s name.

She knew that she deserved this, but it still stung. It still hurt so much that it took her breath away to know that he had been driven to do this in order to exact his revenge, and that coupled with her own self-loathing as she understood that it was her own fault was crippling. She could hardly breathe, could hardly think straight, and it wasn’t until a plastic cup of ice-cold water was pressed into her hands that she realised she was having another panic attack.

“It’s alright,” the bartender shouted in her ear, resting a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “You’re going to be alright. It’ll pass. Is there anyone you want me to call?”

Sephy. Clara wanted Sephy more than anything; wanted her here to hold her and take care of her and reassure her that everything was going to be alright. Yet she knew the futility of her wish; knew that if Sephy were here, she would only pass judgement and be angry. Still, she yearned for her girlfriend; yearned to be with her now and looked after as she tried to put herself back together.

“Sephy?” the bartender repeated, and Clara realised she must have spoken aloud. She tried to protest as the girl reached into her bag and extracted her phone, holding it out for her to unlock, and Clara did so with weary resignation, watching as the girl opened her call log and clicked on Sephy’s number. Closing her eyes, she steeled herself for what was coming next.

“Hello?” the girl began. “Yeah, I’m not… no, she’s… you really need to come and get her.”

* * *

“Clara?” A voice asked, seemingly from very far away. It was a nice voice; a pleasant voice; and Clara smiled to herself.

“Clara?” the voice asked again, and something about it seemed important; it was somehow familiar.

“ _Clara_?” the voice said more loudly, and Clara blinked hard as she snapped her focus from introspection to outward-facing with considerable difficulty. She was in a back room of the club; the music was quieter here and the lights harsher, and she squinted in the glare, realising that Sephy was stood in front of her with a look of concern and irritation on her face. “God.”

Sephy turned her attention away from Clara, looking over at the bartender from earlier, who was hovering in the corner of the room uncertainly.

“How much has she had to drink?” Sephy asked.

“I dunno. At least seven or eight measures, but I spoke to Kevin on the door and she was wasted when she got here. And urm…”

“What?”

“I don’t think that’s all,” the girl blurted, then hastily backed out of the room before she could be asked to elaborate further.

“What does she mean by that?” Sephy demanded to know, looking down at Clara with a frown. “What’s she talking about?”

“I don’t know,” Clara lied, although she felt a swooping sense of nausea in the pit of her stomach. “I don’t know what she’s…”

Sephy’s hand settled under her chin, tilting her face up and into the light. Clara hissed in complaint as the glare hit her eyes, snapping them shut, but Sephy let go of her almost at once and trailed her hand around to her neck, coming to rest on her carotid artery. Clara knew what she was doing and steeled herself for the outcome, dreading what was coming.

“You stupid cow,” Sephy said after a moment, retracting her hand, and Clara hung her head, fighting back tears of remorse. Sephy’s tone was hard and cold as she repeated: “You stupid, stupid cow.”

“I…”

“Don’t you fucking dare try to insult my intelligence by saying you haven’t taken something. You’re red-hot, your pulse is all over the shop, and your pupils look like fucking dinner plates. What was it? Who gave it to you?”

“I don’t remember.”

“You don’t remember what drugs you’ve taken, or you don’t remember who gave it to you? Or both?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Don’t fucking lie to me,” Sephy said in a low, dangerous voice. “Don’t you fucking dare.”

“It was a pill. Alright?” Clara looked up at her then, flinching at the fury on Sephy’s face. “A little pink pill. A guy in the loos gave it to me.”

“And what did you give him in return?”

“Sorry?” Clara focused on making eye contact with Sephy with some difficulty.

“What, did you pay him back with a _favour_?”

“No!” Clara shook her head forcefully as understanding dawned, and the room lurched at the sudden motion. “No, I… it was a freebie, it was just… I didn’t…”

“Didn’t what? Didn’t think? Didn’t stop and wonder whether or not you ought to take a mystery fucking pill a random bloke had just given you in the loos? Didn’t stop and think maybe you shouldn’t be drinking, or in a club? Didn’t think to maybe call me, because I’ve been scared out of my fucking tree; I’ve been trying to call you for hours and hours and hours, going out of my mind with worry… Doctor Moon said you never bloody showed up… I thought you’d… I really thought you’d…”

“M’sorry,” Clara mumbled, starting to cry as she realised the depth of the pain she’d caused. “M’sorry, Sephy, I’m sorry.”

“God, I thought you were dead in a ditch but no, you were in some sleazy nightclub in Camden, getting high off your fucking face.”

“I’m sorry,” Clara began to sob in earnest, burying her face in her hands. “Sephy, I’m sorry; can we just… can we please go home?”

“What for? So I can spend the whole night making sure you don’t choke to death on your own vomit?”

“Sephy, _please…_ ”

“What brought this on?” Sephy asked, her tone gentler. “You were good. You were doing so well; you were making progress. You were sober, you were happy… _we_ were happy. Why? Why now?”

“It’s…” the room lurched again, and Clara closed her eyes as she forced herself to say the words aloud: “It’s Danny. He’s… he’s modelling for Melissa Saxon.”

“Oh,” Sephy said quietly. “Oh, god.”

“Yeah,” Clara mumbled, and then leant forward and was violently, messily sick.


	48. Chapter 48

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the aftermath of Clara's breakdown, Sephy tries to pick up the pieces.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Angst O’Clock...

Sephy threw open the back door of the taxi she’d eventually managed to flag down to bring them both home, her sick-stained clothes slung over one arm in a carrier bag, while the other was wrapped securely around Clara’s waist in a vice-like grip. Since the incident in the club, she was now wearing an oversized football shirt that smelt faintly of sweat, and a pair of men’s cargo shorts held up with a length of bright-blue string, both of which had been purloined from the club’s lost property box. Sephy wasn’t sure who exactly was going to nightclubs and forgetting items of their own clothing, but she was grateful for their ineptitude in the moments after Clara had finished throwing up down her front.

“M’sorry,” Clara mumbled, as Sephy gave the driver a hefty tip to compensate for the smell of sick that had pervaded his cab, and the incoherent ramblings of Clara. “Where…”

“We’re home,” Sephy said tartly, scrambling out with Clara in tow and kicking the door shut behind them with one foot. “Well, almost, anyway.”

Ryan was stood in front of the building with his hood up, hands shoved deep in his pockets as he surveyed them both with a look of bemusement. They must have made quite the sight: the inebriated, incapacitated fashion designer, and the sick-scented fashion victim at her side.

“Alright?” he asked, then grimaced at the inanity of the question. “I mean… obviously she’s not alright, but… you know what I mean.”

“Why’s he here?” Clara slurred, blinking hard and struggling to focus on Ryan’s face. “What’s he…”

“I’m so sorry, Ryan,” Sephy said apologetically, ignoring Clara’s question and talking all the more loudly in a bid to drown her out. “I didn’t know who else to call… Yvonne and Donna would just be… I couldn’t face them, but I can’t manage her on my own.”

“How bad is she?” Ryan asked, taking a few tentative steps closer and giving a shy little wave. “Hi Clara.”

“What’s he doing here?” Clara repeated, her words flowing into one. “Why’s he here? Don’t want him here; don’t want him…”

“She’s bad,” Sephy gritted her teeth, wondering how best to quantify the situation to Ryan. “She was sick all down me in the club. I need a shower as much as she bloody does.”

“I was wondering about the smell.”

“Yeah, well,” Sephy sighed, then flashed him a grateful smile. “Remind me that I owe you for this forever and ever.”

“Will do,” Ryan said brightly, throwing his hood back and rolling up his sleeves. “Want me to take her and you can do the doors?”

“Please,” Sephy held onto Clara carefully as Ryan approached, looping his arm around hers and taking Clara’s weight. Extricating herself, Sephy rolled her shoulders and grimaced at the ache beginning to set in. “Cheers.”

“Don’t want… Ryan… geroff… want…” Clara began to protest, but Sephy shot her a stern look and she fell obediently silent.

The three of them headed inside, immediately attracting a sad head shake from the security guard on the front desk. “Again?” he asked, an undercurrent of sadness to his voice, looking at Clara with pity. He was old enough to be her father, and had been in post long enough to have seen… well, the bad times, Sephy supposed; the times that had been much worse than this. “She was doing so well…”

“I know,” Sephy felt a surge of sadness amidst her fury. “We’ll take her up, get her cleaned up. Don’t worry.”

“Take good care of her.”

“We will,” Sephy promised, pressing the button for the lift and shooting Clara an appraising glance as Ryan came to a stop beside her. “We’ll make sure she’s alright.”

“M’fine,” Clara said magnanimously, trying and failing to stand upright. “M’totally fine.”

“Course you are,” Sephy shot back, her tone somewhere between bright and bitter. “That’s why you were sick all over me.”

The lift arrived and the three of them piled in, Clara leaning against Ryan and falling silent with a significantly sulky expression.

“What’s she had?” Ryan asked quietly, looking down at the woman leaning against his side with a mixture of pity and compassion as she slumped more completely against him, her balance thrown off by the swooping upwards motion of the lift. “She’s a state, what did she…”

“Quite a lot to drink, and she took something as well. I think it was MDMA; I bloody hope it was MDMA and not anything worse. Some bloke gave it to her.”

“Nice bloke,” Clara mumbled, a wide, child-like smile on her face. “Nice, nice bloke.”

“Not nicer than Ryan,” Sephy noted. “The man who is currently holding your sorry arse upright, even though you smell of sick.”

“Nice Ryan,” Clara patted his chest blearily. “Nice, nice Ryan.”

“You’re an absolute mess,” Sephy told her with bemused resignation. “An absolute, utter mess.”

Clara only smiled at her dazedly, and Sephy sighed, knowing that nothing she said would be remembered in the morning. The lift doors dinged open and they headed down the corridor to Clara’s flat; Sephy fumbled with the door key, and then they were in, the door was closed behind them, and some of the anxiety that had been weighing on Sephy’s mind was alleviated. This was a safe place; Clara was safer here than she was anywhere. She had two people to support her, and they would make sure that she came to no harm. Whatever she needed, they would provide; Sephy might think that she was behaving like a selfish, self-centred cow, Danny or no Danny, but she still needed to be taken care of; was still vulnerable and undoubtedly afraid.

“Home now,” Sephy told her in a gentle tone, some of her anger dissipating. “Clara, home now. Safe now.”

Clara beamed from ear to ear, her whole face lighting up.

“Home,” she repeated, clinging onto the familiar word. “Home.”

“I think,” Sephy chanced, looking at Ryan. “Talking to her like she’s a toddler is the best bet.”

“Best way to treat drunk people,” he concurred with an easy shrug. “That’s what I was told when I was younger. You treat drunk people like they’re toddlers, so you use lots of little words and ask them easy questions. The same thing works the other way around; you can treat toddlers like little drunk adults. It’s a good theory.”

“Clara, you need a bath, alright?” Sephy asked, keeping her voice low and reassuring. “We’re going to help you have a bath, and then you need to eat something, and sleep.”

“Don’t want to sleep,” Clara mumbled, shaking her head hard. “Don’t want… don’t want go to sleep.”

“It really is like having a small child,” Sephy grimaced, then took Clara by the arm and allowed Ryan to step away, stretching out as he did so. “Right. I can manage this bit, I think. You can help yourself to anything; the kitchen is through there and it should be fully stocked. Make yourself comfortable.”

“Cheers. Shout if you need anything, alright?”

“Will do,” a thought occurred to her, and she held out the bag containing her stinking clothes by the handles. “Do us a favour; chuck that in the washing machine, yeah? Whole thing; stick it in and close the door and I’ll sort it out later.”

He accepted the proffered item at arm’s length, looked between the two of them and then nodded, heading off in search of something to eat, and Sephy helped Clara into the bathroom. Lowering her partner to the floor carefully, she turned on the taps and added a slug of bubble bath to the tub, Clara watching the bubbles form with fascination.

“Do you want a hot bath or a not-so-hot bath?” Sephy asked, sticking to the talking-to-Clara-like-a-toddler strategy. “You felt really warm earlier.”

“Not-so-hot,” Clara said softly, reaching her hand into the tub and brushing her fingertips through the bubbles with wonder. “Please.”

“Alright,” Sephy adjusted the taps, then sat down in front of her partner on her haunches. “You need to undress. Please.”

Clara only blinked at her.

“Clothes off, please.”

Still Clara only stared, and Sephy swore under her breath.

“Arms up,” she said firmly, and something about that seemed to jolt Clara into motion, and she held her arms up obediently. “There we go.”

 _Treat her like a small child_ , Sephy reminded herself. _Just no tantrums, please._

* * *

Sephy stepped out of the bathroom some time later, towelling her hair dry and relishing in the fact that she no longer smelled of stale sick. Clara had been bathed, persuaded to eat some toast, and was now asleep on the sofa with a bucket by her side, and Ryan was on his second sandwich of the evening, perched at the breakfast bar so that he could keep an eye on the slumbering designer from the safety of the kitchen.

“Better?” he asked, as Sephy entered the kitchen in her large, fluffy dressing gown.

“Much better,” she crouched down and opened the washing machine, tipped her clothes out of their bag, chucked them, the borrowed garments, the towels and Clara’s outfit into the drum, before adding a capful of detergent, and then switching the machine on. She scrunched up the bag, shoved it deep into the bin, and then washed her hands with a shudder. “Feel a bit more human now. How’s the sandwich?”

“Pretty good, man,” he grinned, taking another bite and saying with his mouth full: ‘Your fridge is full of the good shit.”

“We try,” Sephy let out a long sigh, running her fingers through her damp hair. “Thanks for coming over to help. Not everyone would’ve.”

“She’s my employer and you’re my friend,” he swallowed, then shrugged nonchalantly. “Just trying to look out for you both.”

“Thanks, Ryan,” Sephy smiled at him tiredly. “I mean it. Thank you.”

“It’s alright,” he said with his familiar, reassuring smile. “Really. You don’t have to keep saying thank you; I just wanted to do the right thing and make sure you were both alright. Speaking of which, how long have you two…”

“Oh, god,” Sephy’s cheeks coloured as she realised he was not as oblivious as she’d hoped. “Since Fashion Week, really. It’s… yeah. How did you know?”

“Well, aside from the fact that she looks at you like a lovesick puppy, it’s been pretty obvious to anyone at work who has eyes. You seem to be doing her the world of good, you know. She’s got way nicer since you’ve been seeing each other.”

“People keep saying that,” Sephy mused. “And yet tonight… well, tonight it all went downhill.”

“What happened?” he asked tentatively. “Tonight, I mean? Why did she… I dunno, crash like that?”

“It’s urm… it’s Danny,” Sephy looked down guiltily, unsure how much she ought to tell him. “He’s doing an ad campaign for Melissa Saxon, and there’s a lot of bad blood between her and Clara. I think it tipped her over the edge, finding out. Especially because he’s ah… less than clothed in it.”

“I see.”

“And I…” Sephy shot a look to where Clara was still sleeping peacefully in the lounge, then said quietly: “I knew. He messaged me a few weeks ago, demanding to meet up, and when we did, he told me he was going to do it. I just… I didn’t know how to tell her; I didn’t know how to let her know I saw him, even, without her lashing out at me and accusing me of colluding with him or… whatever. So I didn’t tell her, and she can’t ever know that I knew, or she’ll go ballistic.”

“But what if she does find out?”

“I just hope that she won’t,” Sephy chewed her lip anxiously. “The only other person who could tell her is Danny, and she’s not exactly speaking to him, so there’s that. I just… I never thought… I didn’t think she’d go this off the rails when she found out about him and Saxon. She’s been doing so well with her counsellor; she’s been making so much progress; she’s been doing brilliantly, and then this happens and just… god, I’m scared, Ryan. I’m really, really scared. I thought she had a handle on things… I thought she was coping. But she’s not coping and I’m bloody terrified she’s going to do something like this again. And next time, there might not be a bartender to keep an eye on her, or someone with good intentions. Next time there might be a bloody horrible bloke, or several blokes, and she might… she might…”

Sephy broke off, hyperventilating, and she leant forward over the kitchen counter, gasping for breath and trying to remember how to force oxygen into her lungs.

“Hey,” Ryan said in a low, reassuring voice, reaching over and settling a hand on her shoulder. “Hey, it’s alright. Breathe for me, yeah. Nice slow breaths.”

Sephy tried to obey, closing her eyes and trying to take calmer, measured breaths. She was scared for Clara, yes, and scared for herself; scared what Clara’s newly rediscovered hedonism would mean for them both. Was this the new normal? Was this something she would have to deal with on a regular basis? She had no way of telling; no way of knowing what had been going through Clara’s mind until she woke again in the morning and they discussed the evening’s events.

A glass was set down in front of her and Sephy opened her eyes, reaching for it gratefully and taking small, careful sips of the water it held as Ryan watched over her protectively.

“Thanks,” she mumbled, then took a larger sip, resting the rim of the glass against her forehead and taking a shuddering breath. “Sorry. You must think I’m a right mess.”

“No, I think you’re _dealing_ with a right mess, and that’s scary for anyone. I’d be freaked out about it as well, if not even more so. But you don’t have to deal with it on your own, you know. You’ve got people around who can help you with Clara – me, Donna, Yvonne. Your family.”

“My family don’t know about her.”

“Ah,” he paused, then asked carefully: “Homophobia?”

“No, no, it’s… it’s not that; they’ve always been great about that. No, it’s way more complicated than that. Really, really complicated.”

“Complicated how?”

Sephy hesitated for a moment, then before she could stop herself, the words slipped out:

“I’m John Smith’s daughter.”


	49. Chapter 49

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sephy had never intended to confess, but once the words start pouring out, she can't stop them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here goes nothing...

There was a long, pregnant silence as Ryan blinked at her in stupefied disbelief, seemingly trying to get the measure of her statement and its veracity. She watched several emotions pass over his face – amazement, confusion, denial, and then, finally, his mouth twisted into a grin.

“You’re kidding,” he said, the statement going upwards at the end so that it formed a half-question. “That’s not funny, Sephy.”

“I’m not kidding.”

“Come on, this ain’t funny. Don’t joke about things like that.”

“I’m not joking,” she told him calmly, folding her arms and leaning back against the worktop. “I’m very, very much not joking.”

Ryan gaped at her for a moment, then started shaking his head.

“Nah, man,” he said emphatically. “Nah, you can’t be. You just… you can’t be. There’s no way you can. People would know… people would recognise you. People would’ve noticed by now, yeah? And nobody has.”

“Believe me, people wouldn’t notice if they fell over me,” Sephy raised her eyebrows. “You didn’t. Yvonne didn’t. Clara didn’t. My dear old dad was remarkably scant on the details when it came to talking about me – it hurt too much, you see; given what happened. He couldn’t stand it, so he just pushed all his feelings down and focused on my sister Jenny. Well. Half-sister, anyway. Jenny was a safer bet, quite frankly. Literally and metaphorically the golden girl.”

“Why did you hurt too much?”

“My mum died,” Sephy explained quietly. “She was his first wife, and she died in an accident when I was seven. He went a bit off the rails, really. Threw himself into work and tried to pretend everything was fine; tried to pretend I wasn’t a constant reminder of Mum. Then he met River, my stepmum – she runs the company now – and had Jenny, and then… well, it all went downhill for me and him.”

“But your name…”

“Oh, please. Like you’d want to be saddled with a name that was half-ridiculous, half-mundane,” Sephy laughed. “Besides, I didn’t want that link to him.”

“Yeah, but… Smith is a common enough name. There’s loads of people called Smith.”

“I just…” Sephy shook her head, unable to put the feeling into words. “I didn’t want that reminder.”

“Where did you get Lautrec from?” Ryan frowned. “That’s… random.”

“It’s after Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. He was Dad’s favourite painter, and the first painter I saw an exhibition of. It resonated with me, and I figured it would be a little subtle nod to Dad, without it being obvious.”

“It’s not bloody spellable,” Ryan groused, rolling his eyes fondly. “Couldn’t you have stuck with something a bit easier?”

“Nah,” Sephy grinned. “I like being difficult. Makes things more fun.”

“When you say things with your dad went downhill… what do you…”

“Oh, he just never… he struggled with me, I think because I looked so much like Mum, and I was just a reminder of everything he could have had and everything his life could have been. He was happy with my stepmum; of course he was, he loved her more than anything, but there was always just… well, the problem of me. We didn’t really get on, and he didn’t really support my decision to be an artist or to go travelling. And then… then he met the woman currently asleep on the sofa.”

“Clara?” Ryan frowned, looking out to the lounge and then back at Sephy in confusion. “Wait, she was his… wasn’t she his…”

“Protégée? Yeah. But he got… I don’t know, he got weirder and weirder, and then he got _really_ obsessive about her; we weren’t on great terms anyway and then he was coming home and going on and on about her, working long hours, and it was weird! I told him it was weird, and we had a massive fight about it all; both shouted some things we probably didn’t mean. I walked out the house, and then… well, a few years down the line, he announced he was leaving River and I went absolutely ballistic at him. That woman… she’s the absolute rock of our family. Even when things with Dad were awful, she was there for me, and she made me feel like I belonged. She never made me feel second-best or less important. She never tried to push me out. Even now, she’s like a mum to me and I love her to pieces. So when he announced he was leaving her, I went mental at him, and we had another screaming match. We didn’t speak then for a couple of years, and then I… then I got the call to say he’d died.”

“I’m sorry,” Ryan murmured, his expression pained. “I… my mum died when I was thirteen. She had a heart attack and I was the one who found her laid on the kitchen floor, stone dead. It doesn’t… it doesn’t get easier. My dad didn’t handle it well either; he just kind of… I dunno. He didn’t cope with it at all; went to absolute pieces. I looked like my mum as well and I think he just… I dunno, he didn’t know how to deal with it. He left, went to work overseas, and it was a mess. We’ve sort of reconnected recently, but I’m a bit… I dunno. I’m worried he just wants to get back into my life in case I make it big, so he can have a handout or something. That sounds proper bad, but I just… I don’t know him. I don’t know who he is anymore, and I don’t know if I want to.”

“It’s hard,” Sephy concurred. “There were so many days where I just… wanted to pick up the phone and talk to him, and now I wish – over and over and over again – that I could do that, you know? That I could call him, and show him what I’m doing now. But I can’t. I can’t, and I’ve got to live with that fact; the fact that he probably thought I hated him. I didn’t! I didn’t always _like_ him very much, but I didn’t hate him, it was just… hard, you know? Hard to see him playing happy families with my sister and my stepmum like I didn’t exist; hard to see him being a dad to Jenny in a way he never was to me. I mean, it wasn’t her fault! God knows, it wasn’t her fault and I’ve never resented her for it; she couldn’t help that he saw her differently to how he saw me. But it hurt so much, and to have that constant, ever-present indifference to me… it was just… I don’t know. I still don’t really know how to feel about him. I miss him sometimes, but other times I don’t think about him for… oh, weeks, sometimes. And there’s still River. I still see her and Jenny all the time, but at the moment…”

“They don’t know about you and Clara,” Ryan finished the sentence for her. “I mean, they must know you’re working for her.”

“They do. They just… I mean, Jenny wouldn’t mind so much; she doesn’t really know the extent of the Clara thing. I think she was sort of… I don’t know, too unaware at the time to really grasp what was going on; wasn’t really that interested in it all. She’s heard River talk about it, and so she sort of follows through with slagging her off, but’s all just going through the motions I think, trying to people-please. River, though… it would kill her. She was so unhappy to know I was working for Clara; she kept warning me off it, giving me all these veiled allusions about doing it. Knowing that we’re… well, it’d just… I can’t lose her. I can’t, Ryan,” her voice cracked. “I can’t lose them, they’re all I’ve got left.”

“You’ve got Clara.”

“Yeah, and if she ever finds out…” Sephy buried her face in her hands, fighting the urge to cry. “I don’t want to keep lying to her, but I don’t know how to make her understand that none of this was planned. She’d think the worst of me; she’d think… god, I don’t even know, but it’d kill her. This evening is what finding out about Danny working for Melissa Saxon did to her… if she knew about me… she’d… I don’t even want to think about it. I can’t. It’d destroy her completely, and destroy me.”

“But you can’t lie forever. I mean… what about when she wants to meet your family?”

“I know,” Sephy said desperately. “I know, I know, and like I said… this was never planned. I never wanted to fall in love with her… I never thought I would. When I found out we’d be working for her… it was a shock, yes, but I was curious. I’d heard so much about her and I was curious to know more, only then… only then I ended up falling in love. And it’s hell, Ryan. It’s absolute hell, knowing that she’s so fragile and I have this great big metaphorical red button in my hands that could blow her whole world and this whole thing apart. It’s exhausting and it’s terrifying and it’s… god, I don’t know what to do. River would kill me as well… everything would fall apart if the truth came out, but I can’t lie forever. I know that. I just don’t know how to _stop_ lying at this point. I spent so long wondering if it would be kinder to just leave Clara before she could find out; before my family could find out; but I couldn’t do it. I was weak, and I couldn’t do it.”

“I don’t think that’s weak,” Ryan reasoned. “I think that’s what you do when you love someone. You stay.”

“Even when staying hurts them? Even when staying is going to cause them more pain down the line?”

“I don’t think we always get a choice in these things. You didn’t ask to fall for her, but you did. And you will have to face up to things one day, yes, but you’ve got time to try and work it out. You’ve got time to try and come up with a plan. It might be scary, but it’s all you can do, because you’re in too deep to leave now. I might not be into women, but the way you two look at each other… there’s no way you can just walk out of that. You’re way too much in love for that.”

“But I know when she finds out… it’s going to kill her. And the lying is just… it’s exhausting, Ryan,” Sephy confessed. “She insisted on coming to see my place, and I had to hide everything I could find that had my family in or on. It’s all bundled up in a box under the stairs and I just… I can’t go on like that. I can’t keep putting her and my family into literally separate boxes; I can’t keep them apart forever. But I know when they finally mix together it’s just going to be a mess, and everything will be ruined. And it’s selfish of me, but I don’t want things to be ruined… I want things to be how they are.”

“But you’re unhappy. You’re stressed. You’re lying.”

“But I’ve still got both of them. I’ve still got Clara, and I’ve still got my family.”

“Yeah, but like… how long can that go on for? How long can you keep lying to them both?”

“I don’t know,” Sephy sighed. “I really don’t know, but it’s… I don’t know how to begin unpicking everything. I don’t know what to tell who or how or when or anything like that. And I _know_ I’m selfish and an idiot, but I never thought I’d fall for the woman my dad took under his wing.”

“I don’t think you’re selfish, or an idiot,” Ryan told her in a gentle, reassuring tone. “I think you fell in love, and I think you want so desperately to keep being loved – which isn’t a fault, you know, it’s not a bad thing; it’s just human – that you’re scared of doing anything to threaten that. Love is blind, and all that. It doesn’t know your back story; it doesn’t know who Clara is to you. Nah, you just got hit by Cupid’s arrow. Fuck that little cherub, right?”

Sephy snorted. “Exactly. Fuck that guy.”

“You already know what the worst that could happen is, so you gotta focus on the positive outcomes you might get. You might end up getting married to Clara, maybe having kids if you’re that way inclined-”

“No thanks.”

“Well then, cats or dogs. You might end up with a really nice little house somewhere scenic. All that shit that straight people get. It could be yours.”

“If she doesn’t have a breakdown or kill me first.”

“I think killing you would be quite messy, and also quite illegal. The breakdown seems more likely, but she’s already doing that, so maybe now would be a good time to break it to her; ride it out in one fell swoop.”

Sephy laughed mirthlessly. “Yeah, maybe not. I should probably apologise to her when she wakes up; I wasn’t necessarily as nice as I should or could have been when I found her.”

“Yeah, but… she’s behaving like… well, like a self-centred narcissist. You were bloody scared about her, and taking drugs is just dumb on a lot of levels. So realistically, nobody expected you to be saintly and nice about it.”

“I called her a stupid cow.”

“You were not wrong.”

“Ryan!” Sephy bit down on her lip, letting out a stifled giggle. “I still feel like I should apologise.”

“Well, that’s on you. And telling her the truth is also on you.”

“And you won’t…” Sephy paused, needing to check. “You know. Tell anyone?”

“Hey, it’s not my drama to get in on,” he shrugged, then mimed zipping his lips together. “My lips are sealed, mate. I’m not getting involved with any of this, but I’ll be there if you need me.”

“Thank you,” Sephy said sincerely. “Really, thank you. Not just for that, but for listening, and not judging me too much – at least not out loud – and for helping with Clara.”

“It’s no trouble. Thanks for the sandwiches.”

“You’re welcome,” Sephy looked out into the lounge, sighing heavily as she took in the sight of Clara, curled up on the sofa and still deeply asleep. “I should probably take her to bed now; she can’t stay there all night. You can stay if you want, or…”

“Nah, I’ll bounce. That sofa is way too short for me to even try sleeping on.”

“Thank you again.”

“Don’t mention it,” Ryan grinned, sweeping her into a bone-crushing hug before stepping back and giving her a thumbs up. “You’ve got this.”

“I’ve got this.”

“That’s the spirit.”


End file.
